368 AGRICULTURE 



Gapes. Gapes is another disease attacking young 

 chicks. It is caused by a small worm picked up from the 

 soil. The worms attach themselves to the inner walls of 

 the windpipe, where they draw their food from the blood 

 of the chick, thereby weakening it, and also clogging the 

 passage so that the chick gasps for breath. 



Here again prevention is a question of sanitation. If 

 the soil is free of the worms, there will be no gapes in the 

 chickens. It is well, therefore, to keep the young chicks 

 on clean new ground on which former broods have not been 

 raised. 



Cholera. Several different kinds of germs commonly 

 found in the intestines of chickens may, under certain con- 

 ditions, cause diseases known as cholera. True chicken 

 cholera is caused only by one particular germ, however. 

 Cholera is contracted by contact with fowls sick with the 

 disease, by germs carried by new birds brought into the 

 flock, by germs brought by wild birds that alight in the poul- 

 try yard, or dogs or other animals that roam from place 

 to place. 



It does not pay to try to cure fowls that have contracted 

 the disease. It is best to kill them at once, burning or 

 deeply burying the bodies. Care should all center on pre- 

 vention. First of all, the flock must have sanitary sur- 

 roundings good air, sunshine, quarters that are dry and 

 clean, and should have suitable food. 



The poultry house and yard must be frequently disin- 

 fected. New fowls brought into the flock must be kept by 

 themselves for a week to make sure they do not carry in- 

 fection. Stray animals should be shut from the chicken 

 yard. The careful following of these simple precautions 

 will greatly lessen the danger from chicken cholera. 



Roup. This is but another name for a kind of con- 

 tagious catarrh among poultry which closely resembles in- 



