Poultry / A Practical Guide to the Choice, Breeding, Rearing, and Management of all Descriptions of Fowls, Turkeys, Guinea-fowls, Ducks, and Geese, for Profit and Exhibition.

by Hugh Piper

CHAPTER XXIV.

DISEASES.

It is more economical to kill at once rather than attempt to cure common fowls showing symptoms of any troublesome disease, and so save trouble, loss of their carcases, and the risk of infection. But if the fowls are favourites, or valuable, it may be desirable to use every means of cure.

See to a sick fowl at once; prompt attention may prevent serious illness, and loss of the bird. When a fowl's plumage is seen to be bristled up and disordered, and its wings hanging or dragging, it should be at once removed from the others, and looked to. Pale and livid combs are as certain a sign of bad health in fowls, as the paleness or lividness of the lips is in human beings. Every large establishment should have a warm, properly ventilated, and well-lighted house, comfortably littered down with clean straw, to be used as a hospital, and every fowl should be removed to it upon showing any symptoms of illness, even if the disease is not infectious, for sick fowls are often pecked at, ill treated, and disliked by their healthy companions. Bear in mind that prevention is better than cure, and that proper management and housing, good feeding, pure water and greens, cleanliness and exercise, will prevent all, or nearly all, these diseases.

Apoplexy arises from over-feeding, and can seldom be treated in time to be of service. The only remedy is bleeding, by opening the large vein under the wing, and pouring cold water on the head for a few minutes. Open the vein with a lancet, or if that is not at hand, with a sharp-pointed penknife; make the incision lengthways, not across, and press the vein with your thumb between the opening and the body, when the blood will flow. If the fowl should recover, feed it on soft, low food for a few days, and keep it quiet. It occurs most often in laying hens, which frequently die on the nest while ejecting the egg; and is frequently caused by too much of very stimulating food, such as hempseed, or improper diet of greaves, and also by giving too much pea or bean meal.

Hard Crop, or being Crop-Bound, is caused by too much food, especially of hard grain, being taken into the crop, so that it cannot be softened by maceration, and is therefore unable to be passed into the stomach. Although the bird has thus too large a supply of food in its crop, the stomach becomes empty, and the fowl eats still more food. Sometimes a fowl swallows a bone that is too large to pass into the stomach, and being kept in the crop forms a kernel, around which fibrous and other hard material collects. Mr. Baily says: "Pour plenty of warm water down the throat, and loosen the food till it is soft. Then give a tablespoonful of castor-oil, or about as much jalap as will lie on a shilling, mixed in butter; make a pill of it, and slide it into the crop. The fowl will be well in the morning. If the crop still remain hard after this, an operation is the only remedy. The feathers should be picked off the crop in a straight line down the middle. Generally speaking, the crop will be found full of grass or hay, that has formed a ball or some inconveniently-shaped substance. (I once took a piece of carrot three inches long out of a crop.) When the offence has been removed, the crop should be washed out with warm water. It should then be sewn up with coarse thread, and the suture rubbed with grease. Afterwards the outer skin should be served the same. The crop and skin must not be sewed together. For three or four days the patient should have only gruel; no hard food for a fortnight." The slit should be made in the upper part of the crop, and just large enough to admit a blunt instrument, with which you must gently remove the hardened mass.

Diarrhœa is caused by exposure to much cold and wet, reaction after constipation from having had too little green food, unwholesome food, and dirt. Feed on warm barley-meal, or oatmeal mashed with a little warm ale, and some but not very much green food, and give five grains of powdered chalk, one grain of opium, and one grain of powdered ipecacuanha twice a day till the looseness is checked. Boiled rice, with a little chalk and cayenne pepper mixed, will also check the complaint. When the evacuations are coloured with blood, the diarrhœa has become dysentery, and cure is very doubtful.

Gapes, a frequent yawning or gaping, is caused by worms in the windpipe, which may be removed by introducing a feather, stripped to within an inch of the point, into the windpipe, turning it round quickly, and then drawing it out, when the parasites will be found adhering with slime upon it; but if this be not quickly and skilfully done, and with some knowledge of the anatomy of the parts touched, the bird may be killed instead of cured. Another remedy is to put the fowl into a box, placing in it at the same time a sponge dipped in spirits of turpentine on a hot water plate filled with boiling water, and repeating this for three or four days. Some persons recommend, as a certain cure in a few days, half a teaspoonful of spirits of turpentine mixed with a handful of grain, giving that quantity to two dozen of chickens each day. A pinch of salt put as far back into the mouth as possible is also said to be effectual.

[Leg Weakness], shown by the bird resting on the first joint, is generally caused by the size and weight of the body being too great for the strength of the legs; and this being entirely the result of weakness, the remedy is to give strength by tonics and more nourishing food. The quality should be improved, but the quantity must not be increased, as the disease has been caused by over-feeding having produced too much weight for the strength of the legs. Frequent bathing in cold water is very beneficial. This is best effected by tying a towel round the fowl, and suspending it over a pail of water, with the legs only immersed.

Loss of Feathers is almost always caused by want of green food, or dust-heap for cleansing. Let the fowls have both, and remove them to a grass run if possible. But nothing will restore the feathers till the next moult. Fowls, when too closely housed or not well supplied with green food and lime, sometimes eat each other's feathers, destroying the plumage till the next moult. In such cases green food and mortar rubbish should be supplied, exercise allowed, the injured fowl should be removed to a separate place, and the pecked parts rubbed over with sulphur ointment. Cut or broken feathers should be pulled out at once.