46 Hen Health. 



could have avoided had I learned how. But it takes years and 

 years to learn how to do this, and in the meantime some help 

 can be gained through simple medicines. 



The second article of special need for the medicine-chest is 

 a barrel of lime, kept in an open, dry shed, where it will be- 

 come air-slaked into a fine, dry, pungent powder. This is to 

 be liberally dusted over the floor, the perches, the nests, and 

 the walls of the house two or three times a week, after it has 

 been cleaned thoroughly of all the droppings ; and just at sun- 

 down when the fowls are about to go to roost. The fine dust 

 is breathed and makes the fowls sneeze and wheeze, and 

 clears out their throats and nostrils, destroys gape-worms, and 

 cures any possible irritation of the nasal and bronchial mem- 

 branes. I consider this "a great popular remedy," worth a 

 million boxes of roup-pills, catarrh and cholera specifics, 

 "eggine," egg-powders, and all the other quack nostrums of- 

 fered for 50 cents a pound, and very much cheaper. It also 

 keeps the scab-mite, which produces the unsightly scaly leg, 

 at a distance and chokes off lice, fleas and red mites. 



Something, however, may usefully be kept in readiness for 

 accidents; and I find a bottle of a mixture of raw linseed oil 

 with one-fourth part of kerosene oil and a fortieth part of creo- 

 sote, is handy as a complete remedy for scaly leg, and also for 

 the small vermin, when it is liberally applied to the perches, es- 

 pecially in every crevice where they may hide. A solution of one 

 ounce of chlorate of potash in a pint of water, applied with a 

 clean feather or one of the little squirt fillers used for sty lograph- 

 ic pens, to the nostrils and throat, a little also being sent down 

 the throat to the stomach, is a sure cure for croup, diphtheria, 

 sore throat, pip or scaly tongue, or for a purulent discharge from 

 the eyes. I have cured every case of cholera, or the green and 

 yellow discharges which happened for two or three years before 

 I learned how to prevent them, with one teaspoonful of a solu- 

 tion of one ounce of hyposulphite of soda in a pint of water ; 

 and this is the last item of my list of medicines for poultry. 



As a warning against spending money uselessly, I might 



