CAUSE AND CURE OF SICKNESS 



151 



Answer Your hen has a pendulous 

 crop. This is usually caused by over- 

 feeding of mash at some time in her 

 life. It sometimes can be cured by a 

 surgical operation. I would advise 

 you to kill and eat the hen, as in 

 time the crop will become sore. You 

 can easily see before you eat it if a 

 tumor has developed, in which case 

 bury it. 



Poisoning For some time I have 

 read your articles and know that you 

 are different from the majority of 

 poultry writers, in this, that you 

 know what you are writing about. 

 I wish to ask you to please tell me 

 what is ailing a fine White Wyan- 

 dotte cock I have. He has been ail- 

 ing about two months. He was just 

 starting in the moult when he com- 

 menced looseness of the bowels which 

 I cured, when one evening, as I came 

 to shut them up, I found him on the 

 ground unable to get on the roosts; 

 when I lifted him on the roost he 

 fell as' though dizzy and tumbled 

 over and over. Ever since that time 

 he has been getting worse. Now, 

 with the least excitement, he will 

 squat on the ground and twist his 

 head and neck entirely around, often 

 with his bill turned straight up. 



Answer The symptoms you de- 

 scribe are those of ptomaine poison- 

 ing. This is caused by bad meat or 

 bad milk or spoilt beef scraps. Also 

 by musty or smooty grain and for- 

 maline. The treatment is: give a pill 

 of asafoetida about the size of a pea 

 every night for a week; for the same 

 length of time put bicarbonate of soda 

 in the water, about a teaspoonful to 

 a quart of water; give him some char- 

 coal in the feed and avoid feeding 

 whatever is causing the trouble. 



The preservative which butchers 

 put on the meat acts as a poison and 

 many fine birds have been lost 

 by this without the owners discover- 

 ing the trouble. It seems to partly 

 paralyze the bird. 



Ptomaine Poison I am in great 

 trouble and come to you for advice. 

 My splendid White Leghorn chickens 

 are dying like flies and I do not 

 know the cause nor what to do for 

 them. 



Today I lost ten and I am afraid 

 I may lose the whole lot of them. I 



opened several to see if I could find 

 the cause, but they look all right, 

 with the exception of the crop which 

 has nothing in it^ but wind or air. 

 The chickens are seemingly all right 

 and suddenly they will lie down, put 

 their heads under their bodies, and 

 after a while they will die. 



My chickens have plenty of exer- 

 cise, lots of green food, grit and run- 

 ning water. They can run at will 

 all over the ranch and I feed them 

 some every day. I am putting some 

 pulverized asafoetida in their mash as 

 a disinfectant. My chicken house is 

 new and in good order. Mrs. K. G., 

 Polasky. 



Answer Sudden symptoms such as 

 you describe come from poison of 

 some kind which brings on an attack 

 of acute indigestion. The difficulty is 

 to decide what the poison is and 

 where the chickens get it. 



I think your chickens, being on free 

 range, are finding and eating putrid 

 animal food of some kind and that 

 they are suffering from ptomaine 

 poison. 



Rotten vegetables or moulded grain 

 or vegetables have the same effect, 

 although that is from a fungoid poi- 

 son. 



The treatment in either case would 

 be about the same. First remove the 

 poison from the ranch, look for any 

 dead chicken, bird, gopher, etc., and 

 bury deeply or burn. Continue the 

 asafoetida in the mash but also add 

 a teaspoonful of castor oil for each 

 chick the first morning and in every 

 mash for some time to come put pow- 

 dered charcoal and sulphur, a quar- 

 ter of a teaspoonful to each chick. 



Poison I thank you very much 

 for your kind advice. I feed now as 

 you direct me, with fairly good re- 

 sults. The beef scrap of which I send 

 you a sample, I bought at - 

 and it killed my chickens. 



I fed it to different flocks at differ- 

 ent times with the same result and I 

 am positive it is this beef scrap and 

 nothing else that poisoned my chick- 

 ens. I wonder how many people have 

 lost chickens through these same peo- 

 ple who sold to me. Perhaps they 

 sell good scrap sometimes, but this 

 is bad and smells bad. 



What is the best way to feed rab- 

 bits to hens? I cannot grind them in 

 a bone cutter, can I? J. H. 



