The preventive treatment consists in quarantining birds that have been purchased from other flocks, and that have been exhibited, for a period of three weeks. A careful examination of the mouth should be made. If a catarrhal discharge from the nostrils and false membranes is present, prompt treatment should be used. A sick bird should be held in quarantine for several weeks after it has recovered, and receive a thorough washing in a two per cent water solution of a cresol disinfectant before allowing it to mix with the healthy birds.
The medicinal treatment consists in removing the discharges from the nostrils and eyes with pledgets of absorbent cotton that are soaked with a four per cent water solution of boric acid. Among the common treatments mentioned are boric acid and calomel, equal parts by weight, blown into the nostrils and eyes with a powder blower. Water solutions of boric acid, potassium permanganate and hydrogen peroxide are recommended. Liquid preparations are applied with pledgets of cotton, oil cans, or atomizers.
Many recoveries can be obtained with careful treatment. It is usually most economical to kill the severely affected birds. Many poultrymen dispose of the entire flock as soon as the disease makes its appearance, and clean and disinfect the premises before restocking.
CHICKENPOX.—In some sections the disease appears in another form, known as chickenpox (contagious epithelioma), in which nodules form on the skin along the base of the comb and other parts of the head, or both forms may be met with in the same flock. The nodules should be treated with vaseline, or glycerine ointments containing two per cent of any of the common antiseptics or disinfectants.
ENTERO-HEPATITIS. "BLACKHEAD."—This is a very fatal disease of young turkeys. Grown turkeys and other fowls are not so susceptible to the disease. It is characterized by an inflammation of the liver and intestines, especially the caeca.
The specific cause is a protozoan microorganism, Amoeba meleagridis. Adult fowls and turkeys may act as carriers of the germ, and the young turkeys become infected at an early period.
The symptoms are diminished or lost appetite, dulness, drooped wings, diarrhoea, weakness and death. When the disease becomes well advanced, the head and comb become dark.
The course of the disease is from a few weeks to three months. Very few of the young turkeys survive.
The treatment is almost entirely preventive. The same precautionary measures for the prevention of the introduction of disease into the flock, recommended in other infectious diseases, should be practised. Turkeys that survive should be disposed of. As chickens may harbor the disease-producing germs, we should not attempt to raise turkeys in the same quarters with them. Eggs should be obtained from disease-free flocks. Wiping the eggs with a cloth wet with fifty per cent alcohol may be practised. The same recommendations regarding the cleaning and disinfecting of the quarters described in the treatment of fowl cholera should be practised.
If an outbreak of the disease occurs in the flock all of the sick birds should be killed, and their carcasses cremated. Moving the flock to fresh runs and the administration of intestinal antiseptics are the only effective lines of treatment.