48 Hen Health. 



cautions taken accordingly. Treatment is rarely desirable 

 on account of the very contagious nature of the disease, al- 

 though a considerable number may recover, especially after 

 the disease has prevailed for some time. Its ' ' stamping out " 

 and prevention are very simple and comparatively easy if 

 thorough measures are at once adopted and carried out. First 

 kill or isolate all diseased fowls, and burn or bury very deeply 

 at least three feet all dead animals and their products. 

 Then thoroughly disinfect the whole interior of the hen-house 

 and the runs by washing or freely sprinkling with a solution 

 of sulphuric acid acid one pint, water eight gallons. Where 

 the fowls are allowed to run at large, it will be necessary to 

 confine them to smaller quarters, so that the whole may be 

 disinfected. Watch the healthy flock carefully, and remove 

 any showing symptoms of disease. Use the disinfectant gen- 

 erally three or four times a week, and daily on thedroppings > 

 as long as cases of the disease continue to occur. A few 

 drops of the acid in the drinking-water will also act as a pre- 

 ventive. Where the fowls were running at large when the 

 outbreak occurred, it will be safest to keep them confined for 

 three or four months after the disease has all disappeared, so 

 that the germs that may be lying hidden about the place will 

 have time to die out. Fowl cholera, like most other contagious 

 diseases, will die out of itself when there aru no suitable ani- 

 mals for it to prey upon. 



Gapes. Another contagious affection of f owls is known as 

 gapes, or as it is sometimes called, " pip." It is a disease es. 

 pecially of young birds, with which it is very fatal, and is due 

 to the presence in the trachea windpipe and bronchi, of the 

 Syngamus Trachealis, a small red worm, three to five-eighths of 

 an inch in length, and apparently forked near one end. The 

 old birds frequently harbor the worms, but with them they 

 rarely prove fatal. The symptoms are very characteristic. 

 The young bird will occasionally open wide its mouth and 

 gape or gasp for breath. Breathing gradually becomes more 

 difficult, the animals gape more frequently and finally droop 



