32 LEHMAN'S POULTRY DOCTOR. 



chicks; often brooder chicks are overcrowded and 

 overheated, which reduces the vitality, and when let 

 out in the open air they become chilled and bowel 

 trouble is the result. 



In old fowls, exposure to draughts, cold rains, etc., 

 during molting time, may be followed by an attack 

 of gastro-intestinal catarrh. 



Going back again to the causes that may produce 

 the trouble in young chicks; over-heating in the incu- 

 bator or feeding while too young are often the very 

 start of bowel diseases because of the debilitating 

 effects on the chicks' system. 



Symptoms: There is usually great thirst, loss of 

 appetite, food often remains in the crop; the bird is 

 dull, with wings hanging down; the droppings are thin 

 and of a whitish or sometimes of a yellowish or green- 

 ish color, and seem to be of a sticky nature, espec- 

 ially in young chicks, when a mass of excrement will 

 often accumulate about the anus, and when they 

 are kept in a brooder this will dry on and some- 

 times totally obstruct the cloaca. There are usually 

 frequent attempts to expel the excrement, which are 

 often accompanied with pain and much straining. The 

 trouble may soon terminate in death or it may termin- 

 ate in a severe diarrhoea or inflammation of the bowels. 



Treatment: In the first place the cause must be 

 sought and removed; then, in young chicks, a grain 

 each of bicarbonate of soda and subnitrate of bis- 

 muth, and a drop of tincture gentian given three or 



