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.
DIARRHOEA 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 diarrhoea 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.
PIP, a dry scale on the tongue, is not a disease, but the symptom of
some disease, being only analogous to "a foul tongue" in human beings.
Do not scrape the tongue, nor cut off the tip, but cure the roup,
diarrhoea, bad digestion, gapes, or whatever the disease may be, and
the pip will disappear.
ROUP is caused by exposure to excessive wet or very cold winds. It
begins with a slight hoarseness and catching of the breath as if from
cold, and terminates in an offensive discharge from the nostrils, froth
in the corners of the eyes, and swollen lids. It is very contagious.
Separate the fowl from the others, keep it warm, add some "Douglass
Mixture" (see "Moulting") to its water daily, wash its head once or
twice daily with tepid water, feed it with meal, only mixed with hot ale
instead of water, and plenty of green food. Mr. Wright advises half a
grain of cayenne pepper with half a grain of powdered allspice in a
bolus of the meal, or one of Baily's roup pills to be given daily. Mr.
Tegetmeier recommends one grain of sulphate of copper daily. Another
advises a spoonful of castor-oil at once, and a few hours afterwards one
of Baily's roup pills, and to take the scale off the tongue, which can
easily be done by holding the beak open with your left hand, and
removing the scale with the thumbnail of your right hand; with a pill
every morning for a week. If not almost well in a week it will be better
to kill it.
THE THRUSH may be cured by washing the tongue and mouth with borax
dissolved in tincture of myrrh and water.
PARALYSIS generally affects the legs and renders the fowl unable to
move. It is chiefly caused by over-stimulating food. There is no known
remedy for this disease, and the fowl seldom if ever recovers. Although
chiefly affecting the legs of fowls, it is quite a different disease
from LEG WEAKNESS.
VERTIGO results from too great a flow of blood to the head, and is
generally caused by over-feeding. Pouring cold water upon the fowl's
head, or holding it under a tap for a few minutes, will check this
complaint, and the bird should then be purged by a dose of castor-oil or
six grains of jalap.
MOULTING.
All birds, but especially old fowls, require more warmth and more
nourishing diet during this drain upon their system, and should roost in
a warm, sheltered, and properly-ventilated house, free from all draught.
Do not let them out early in the morning, if the weather is chilly, but
feed them under cover, and give them every morning warm, soft food, such
as bread and ale, oatmeal and milk, potatoes mashed up in pot-liquor,
with a little pepper and a little boiled meat, as liver, &c., cut small,
and a little hempseed with their grain at night. Give them in their
water some iron or "Douglass Mixture," which consists of one ounce of
sulphate of iron and one drachm of sulphuric acid dissolved in one quart
of water; a teaspoonful of the mixture is to be added to each pint of
drinking water. This chalybeate is an excellent tonic for weakly young
chickens, and young birds that are disposed to outgrow their strength.
It increases their appetite, improves the health, imparts strength,
brightens the colour of the comb, and increases the stamina of the
birds. When chickens droop and seem to suffer as the feathers on the
head grow, give them once a day meat minced fine and a little
canary-seed.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Piper on Poultry: their Varieties, Management, Breeding,
and Diseases; Price 1s. Groombridge & Sons, 5, Paternoster Row, London.]
[Footnote 2: The Practical Poultry Keeper. By Mr. L. Wright. Cassell,
Petter & Galpin.]
[Footnote 3: The Practical Poultry Keeper. By Mr. L. Wright. Cassell,
Petter & Galpin.]