Symptoms.—All poultry, cage or wild birds are subject to this disease. The first symptoms are loss of appetite; diarrhoea is present and the discharge is almost white in color and tinged with transparent mucus. The affected bird becomes separated from the flock, seems weak and stupid and appears to be asleep; feathers are rough, the wings droop and the head is drawn in toward the body; crop is generally full, owing to improper digestion. The comb is pale and bloodless, the temperature raised from three to five degrees above normal and the bird loses weight rapidly; it may die with convulsions and cries, or without a sound or struggle.
Treatment.—To grown fowls, give Zinc Sulphocarbolates in one-half grain doses three times a day in their food or drinking water. To chicks, dissolve thirty grains of Zinc Sulphocarbolates in two quarts of water. Saturate feed, as stale bread, etc., and give three times a day. Zinc Sulphocarbolates is an antiseptic especially prepared for septic conditions of the intestines, and very useful in treatment of White Diarrhoea and Fowl Cholera. In severe cases of diarrhoea, give Bismuth Salicylate, one grain, three times daily in feed or make into a pill with dough. When the fowls will eat, feed them clean, nitrogenous food that they can digest easily, as oatmeal mashes. It is also necessary to give them pure water to drink at all times. Disinfection of the premises is another essential factor in the treatment of this disease, and undiluted Crude Carbolic Acid is a disinfectant that we can rely upon at all times.
I cannot recommend vaccination as the serum is very difficult and expensive to produce and different breeds of birds require varying doses, therefore, vaccinating poultry for White Diarrhoea or Fowl Cholera is not attended with any great degree of success.
WORMS.
Cause.—Few fowls are entirely free from worms. The soil over which the chicks are permitted to run may be infected, or the food may contain the eggs or embryos of worms.
Symptoms.—The presence of worms in fowls may not be at once detected, since only a close observer would notice them in the droppings. If the birds eat well but remain poor, and the feathers appear rough and the comb and wattles pale, there is reason to suspect the existence of worms.
Treatment.—Preventive treatment is the best. Sprinkle the runs and coops regularly with Crude Carbolic Acid, undiluted. Give two drops of Turpentine in twice this quantity of Sweet or Olive Oil. This dose should be repeated in from six to eight days so as to insure the expulsion of the newly hatched worms or those that may have survived the first treatment.