DIVISION OF POULTRY 687 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



TUBERCULOSIS IN POULTRY. 



BY 



C. H. Higgins, B.S., D.V.8. 



Tuberculosis, or consumption, is a disease that affects fowl as well as human 

 beings, cattle, hogs and other animals. It is caused by a bacillus or germ which is 

 only distinguishable from the germ seen in other animals by elaborate laboratory 

 methods. This affection among fowl was tirst identified in western Ontario by Prof. 

 F. C. Harrison, in 1901, Prof. F. C. Elford, in 1903, and by the writer, in fowls 

 leceived at the laboratory on May 30, 1904, from British Columbia, for an examina- 

 tion to determine the cause of death. Since 1904 the disease has been found by us 

 to be the cause of losses to poultry owners in various parts of British Columbia, and 

 rdso in Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta. It may be and probably is the 

 cause of losses in other provinces. The disease has also been frequently reported 

 from the Bacteriological Laboratory of the Guelph Agricultural College. 



LOSSES. 



The losses from this disease have been large to poultry owners, but there is at 

 present no means of arriving, even approximately, at an estimate with any degree of 

 accuracy. Once the disease makes its appearance in a flock the aggregate losses are 

 large, although a great number of birds do not usually die at one time. 



The following, which is an extract from an inquiry made by a large poultry 

 plant when sending an affected bird for examination, is quite the usual experience 

 where tuberculosis makes its appearance in a flock: — 



' We have lost as many as a hundred fowls with this disease during the 

 past two years. They go light and gradually grow weaker, having a yellow 

 or greenish diarrhoea; some eat to the last, others do not. We have fed mixed 

 grains, also mash, but they have been eating a large quantity of wheat screen- 

 ings. We find many of our chicks go the same as the older hens, dying at all 

 ages. We are beginning to think that artificial hatching has something to do 

 with it, and we are afraid it is tuberculosis caused by the overheated air of 

 the incubator during the hatching season. We try to keep the conditions 

 favourable around the hou-es and yards.' 



In commenting' on the above it is only necessary to state that tuberculosis being 

 due to a definite infecting germ, the overheating of the incubator or other conditions 

 surrounding the chicks or fowl will not induce the disease unless the infecting germ 

 is present. The surrounding conditions may render the fowl more susceptible but 

 cannot produce the disease. 



NATURE OF THE DISEASE. 



Tuberculosis, or consumption, in fowls, as in other animals, is a contagious 

 disease caused by a bacillus or germ. This germ gains entrance to the system, usually 

 with, the food, and finding a favourable location grows and extends to the various 

 tissues. This growth of the germ induces - ;ns of unthriftiness, and this un- 



thriftiness. is followed sooner or later by death. The detection of tuberculosis from 



