POULTRY. 591 



foul emanations from their bodies, by day or by night that they may have sweet, fresh 

 water daily to drink that their food be cleanly and nutritious; and above all, and over all, 

 that they be not exposed to the depredations of devouring and enervating lice. And thus 

 you will have little or no roup among them, of a dangerous or unmanageable character. 



If left to forage for themselves in wet or foul yards and malarious grounds, if exposed to 

 cold draughts in the house, and raw winds outside, if suffered to waddle and wade in barn 

 yard filth, and drink stale, putrid water, if compelled to eat foul food, and but little of it 

 they will not only get lousy but roupy, as well; and you will find that fowl-keeping in this 

 loose, improper, inhuman style &quot; don t pay,&quot; and it ought not to be remunerative, under such 

 conditions and such reckless usage. But, as we have observed, this &quot; roup &quot; disease is in its 

 indications and operations both manifold and complicated. And hence the various kinds of 

 names that different inexperienced persons give to it. Yet it is wholly peculiar to domes 

 ticated fowls, alone. 



Therefore the cause of the malady must be looked for in the conditions which surround 

 the tamed feathered race; inasmuch as no authority has reported an instance where a wild 

 turkey, grouse, or prairie hen a partridge, pheasant, or quail a -woodcock, snipe, or teal 

 a wild goose, duck, or other sea-fowl snared or shot, ever yet was found in its native, free 

 condition exhibiting any token of this roup about their bodies, externally or internally. 



And since this affliction so often falls to the lot of the dumb creatures we attempt to 

 keep around us for profit (or that they may conduce to our pleasure, convenience, or partial 

 sustenance), it is but dutiful that we use proper care, if we keep them at all, that our poultry 

 be so attended and provided for, that the pernicious causes which produce this trouble may not 

 be permitted to exist about our farms and poultry premises; when, in such large measure, 

 the evil may so readily be kept at a distance. 



By the observance of the suggestions we have made, this curse of the poultry-house may 

 be avoided. In no other way can roup, in some or all of its obnoxious phases, be kept from 

 infecting your fowl-stock. And however easy it may be to the skilled breeder to cure this 

 disorder, when he finds it unfortunately breaking out among his flock, the labor of averting 

 the cause of its attacks is far less than the trouble it occasions to eradicate the nuisance, after 

 it fairly shows itself on the premises. For this good reason we advise the humane and 

 economically disposed fancier to look well to the possible prevention of roup in his fowl- 

 houses, rather than to the best way to remedy the evil, which, with due care, he may rarely 

 or never be annoyed with. 



Accidental Maladies. These include many of the nominal &quot;diseases&quot; of fowls as 

 set down in the categories of the poultry books, to wit. : Apoplexy, heart disease, rheumatism, 

 neuralgia, deformities, frozen combs and feet, feather-eating, egg-devouring, wounds from 

 fighting, temporary blindness, loss of plumage, colds, common fevers, paralysis of limbs, the 

 &quot;pip,&quot; &quot;gapes,&quot; costiveness, discolored comb, bumble-foot, scaly legs, etc. 



The above enumerated ills are more or less common in a mild form among domestic gal 

 linaceous fowls at all seasons of the year. But these evils are incidental, or accidental in 

 great part, to poultry life. Some of these affections are not discoverable by, or explicable to, 

 the novice or amateur; and it is only the experienced breeder who detects the real character 

 of some others of these difficulties, bad habits, misfortunes, or accidents. 



Acute rheumatics, sprains, neuralgia, paralysis of the legs, colds, coughs, and occasional 

 temporary loss of vision (by the closing up of one or both eyes) are simply local diseases, 

 brought about by local and removable causes. With any of these troubles, fowls are usually 

 not sick a great while at a time. Lameness, or &quot;breaking down &quot; in the legs from apparent 

 partial paralysis is the most serious of all these accidental difficulties. If this proceeds from 

 an affection of the spinal cord (as is sometimes the case) it is incurable; though a fowl may 

 live for weeks or months after the attack helpless as to locomotion comparatively, but other- 



