54 Agricultural Gazette of X.S.W. [Jan. 2, 1908. 



Diseases of Fowls. 



[Cuiitiiiut'd fi'dii I)fieinl)( r, I'JHT, jtage 92(i.] 



Chickex-1'ox oji Warts. 



G. BRADSHAW. 



The above is a blooil disease, unkiunvn in Eiij>'laiiil and other temperate 

 climates, is most virulent in South Africa, is prevah-nt in various parts 

 of the Conunonwealth, and particularly around Sydney. Mild cases have 

 been seen in New Zealand, and although of frc(|uent occurrence in the 

 Southern States of America, it is in a simple form, and imt roLr'ardcil with 

 any danger as here, where late hatched chickens succumb to it in 

 thousands annually. In India, South Africa, and America it is known 

 as chicken-pox, and in Australia as warts, affectin<>- chickens only, usually 

 appearing in the autumn, most cases occurring in the month of April. 

 The younger chickens usually succumb to it, wliile in tlio>r of from three 

 months upwards deaths are rare. 



It is communicable from one to another, generally going right through 

 a yard, even in birds which the owner thought had e.scaped. Such might 

 not be the case, as the attack in dilt'erent subjects is so extreme that 

 one bird's head and eyes may become a mass of eruption, while, in 

 another, if tlie same brood, tlie only visible sym])toms may l)e a rutlied 

 appearance of the plumage, and languid gait, lint wlieii caught, the sulj- 

 ject may be just as feverish as the most severe case. Tliis leads some 

 breeders to think that in a country in which chicken-pox occurs, like the 

 measles in children, every one is expected to take them, and in the latter 

 there are cases so mild that it is not unusual for a paieiit to say that a 

 child never had the measles, when such may liave hvvw in a i^^\•\\\ unnol ice- 

 able. The breeders who contend that warts or chicken-pox attack every 

 chicken in the yard, point to the fact that although understood to attack 

 chickens only, there are instances of adult birds taking it, these exceptions 

 being cases which escaped it in chickenhood, and all evidence points to the 

 disease occurring only once in the same chicken, or in otiier words, chickens 

 which have had the disease become inunune to further attacks, and .seldom 

 or ever does it occur more than once in tlic sanu' individual. A peculiar 

 feature of the ailment is that while adidt fowls are rarely aflfected. birds 

 imported from England to any of the Sydney suburbs usually take it. but 

 not until the season of its appearance among the chicks. That is, fowls 

 arriving in, say. May. June, or .Inly take the di.sease in the following^ 

 March or April, the season when it is most rife; indeed it is nothing un- 

 usual to see the English liirds covered with the eruptions, every other 

 adult in the vards being free, the inference bcimr that the latter had it 



