HEN HEALTH. 



CHAPTER VI. 



A POULTRY MANS MEDICINE-CHEST. 

 HENRY STEWART. 



THE greatest cause of sickness and death among poul- 

 try is over-feeding. The common practice is to give 

 the fowls all they will eat, as if fowls were wiser than 

 hogs and knew when they had enough. Fowls and 

 hogs, and even cows and horses when they can get at a meal- 

 bin, never know how to stop until they are gorged full to the 

 top of the throat, and then trouble begins. First, there is in- 

 digestion, then fever, then cholera or fever and gangrene of 

 the intestines, or inflammation of the mucous membrane, 

 which is catarrh or roup ; or anthrax, which is black-comb, 

 and other fatal disorganizations of the muscular tissues and 

 the liver. In these cases medicine is of little avail, and the 

 only remedy is a sharp little ax, which might justly be fitted in 

 the top of the medicine-chest as the most effective remedy for 

 most of the diseases of poultry. 



The next great fault is the want of perfect cleanliness, which 

 includes pure water, pure air, a clean floor, a clean run for the 

 chicks, the utter absence of vermin, and a wholesome variety 

 of food. No medicine whatever can cure the evil results of 

 this want, except the ax aforesaid, and the deep burial of the 

 virulent contagion produced by this second grand mistake. 

 During the last three years I have not had one sick fowl, nor 

 have I lost one chick which has been safe.ly hatched, and this 

 comfortable result has been due to the exercise of these pre- 

 cautions and the costly experience of previous losses which I 



