148 



MRS. BASLEY'S WESTERN POULTRY BOOK 



Answer Your chickens have in- 

 fluenza. They are taking cold in 

 some way. Either there is a draught 

 in their house or the rain comes in 

 on them; a few have had the cold 

 and they are giving it to the rest. 

 Keep blue-stone in their water, and 

 give each of them a bolus of the fol- 

 lowing, night and morning: Mix two 

 tablespoons of lard, one tablespoon 

 each of cayenne pepper, mustard, 

 vinegar; mix thoroughly, add enough 

 flour to make stiff dough; roll out; 

 give a bolus as large as the end of 

 your little finger. Put carbolated 

 vaseline up their nostrils and in the 

 cleft of the mouth, and give them 

 chopped onions in their food. 



Leg Weakness I am in trouble 

 over my White Rock chickens. I 

 only have a few, so would like to 

 save them. When they are about 

 three weeks old they get weak in 

 the kgs, and after a week or so they 

 begin to tremble like a person that 

 is nervous. They eat well until the 

 last. I feed boiled egg and bread 

 crumbs. They have green barley to 

 run on. I feed kaffir corn at night. 

 During the day I feed onions and 

 table scraps. If you could tell me 

 what to do I would be a thousand 

 times obliged. Mrs. W. K. 



Answer Your chickens are suffer- 

 ing from what is called "leg weak- 

 ness." Leg weakness comes chiefly 

 from wrong feeding, also from over- 

 crowding at night and overheating. 



Young chickens should either be al- 

 lowed free range with a hen or be 

 encouraged to work and scratch for 

 their food. This strengthens their 

 legs. The green food should form at 

 least one-third of their diet and for 

 such young chickens it would have to 

 be chopped up finely. They cannot 

 peck off sufficient green barley. It 

 soon becomes too tough for them. 

 The cure for leg weakness is a little 

 tonic (a few drops of iron in their 

 drinking water) and plenty of green 

 food and cracked wheat instead of 

 kaffir corn. If it comes from over- 

 crowding or overheating, either un- 

 der a hen or in a brooder, you must 

 rectify this. See that they have 

 "chick grit and charcoal." 



write to ask you to be kind enough 

 to diagnose it. 



The chicks are Black Minorcas and 

 are fourteen days old. They seemed 

 to be doing well till yesterday. One 

 or two all at once got so they could 

 not stand up or walk but looked 

 bright. This morning there are half 

 a dozen affected the same way. I 

 feed them a chick feed I have used 

 for several years, curd, charcoal, and 

 plenty of grit and always give the 

 fresh water three or four times a 

 day. For the last three days they 

 have run in a lettuce patch part of 

 the day. I have a hot air brooder, 

 plenty of fresh air at night. No 

 sign of lice and I use a powder in 

 the brooder once a week. I have 

 raised chickens for several years but 

 have never had any trouble like this 

 and I would be greatly obliged if 

 you can diagnose the case and give 

 a remedy. Mrs P. V. M., Sacra- 

 mento. 



Answer The symptoms you de- 

 scribe are those of poisoning or sud- 

 den and acute indigestion. I can only 

 suggest that it may be that the chick 

 feed has mouldy grain in it or there 

 may be ptomaine poison in the beef 

 scrap. I would suggest that you put 

 a little bicarbonate of soda in the 

 drinking water. Give all the succu- 

 lent green food that j'ou can per- 

 suade them to eat and to each af- 

 fected chick administer without de- 

 lay ten drops of castor oil. Try *o 

 find out where the poison comes 

 from, change all the bedding in the 

 brooder and brooder house and scald 

 the brooder thoroughly with hot soap 

 suds. When any sudden trouble like 

 this comes, try to find the cause of 

 it and remove it. I feel sure it is 

 poison of some kind, either ptomaine 

 or fungoid, such -as mouldy bread or 

 mildewed grain. 



Acute Indigestion I am in trouble 

 with some incubator chicks and I 



Limber Neck We have between 

 200 and 300 chicks two months old 

 that are badly affiicted with limber 

 neck, and we cannot find out the 

 cause. The first two or three weeks 

 we fed them millet and Johnnie cake 

 made stiff and dry, of coarse corn 

 meal, but they began to get sick, so 

 changed to dry food, consisting of 

 cracked wheat, millet, beef-scraps and 

 grit, but the chicks got no better, so 

 now we are using just wheat and 



