POULTRY DISEASES AND THEIR REMEDIES 125 



a watery diarrhoea, dark at first, then changing to a nasty yellow. 

 After a while the comb turns dark red or purple color and the fowl 

 mopes around without ambition. 



If these symptoms are noticed and the fowls properly treated all 

 will be well, for nature is quick to respond. Drop all starch foods 

 such as corn meal, potatoes, and flour and if the fowls can be turned 

 out to grass, let them have little else for a few days, so that the liver 

 has time to rest. If they cannot be turned out to grass, give any 

 kind of litter to pick over and get exercise. Nux vomica in the drink- 

 ing water, ten or twenty drops to a pint, keeping away all other 

 water, will soon effect the change. If nothing else is handy give 

 bicarbonate of soda and bisulphate of magnesia in small doses for three 

 or four days. 



If the congestion is not stopped, inflammation soon follows. The 

 symptoms of inflammation are heavy 'breathing along with the 

 diarrhoea and a lowered vitality. The fowl gets poorer all the time 

 and has great thirst, with an almost total loss of appetite. 



Treatment. Clean out the bowels with castor oil dropped from a 

 spoon or dropping tube. The treatment must be individual now as 

 the birds refuse to eat and every minute is time lost. Follow this 

 with tincture of nux vomica, half a teaspoonful to a quart of water. 

 As the birds are thirsty they will take the medicine that way. Keep 

 them perfectly quiet and as soon as they will eat feed boiled rice 

 sprinkled with cinnamon. It takes prompt treatment in these cases, 

 for they don't last long. 



Hypertrophy of the Liver. This disease is much more common 

 in parts where fowls are fed largely on corn and kept housed up 

 during the long winter months. It is due to these two conditions, 

 overfeeding of overheated food and not enough fresh air and exer- 

 cise. I have never had a case and have not heard of many. If fowls 

 get too fat it is a good idea to give a dose of physic in the mash 

 about once a week and that will prevent a tendency to enlarged or 

 hardened liver. 



If podophyllum and nux vomica are kept on hand in a poultry- 

 man's medicine chest, he never need fear losing any case from indiges- 

 tion or liver complaints. These two homeopathic remedies act 

 silently but surely without distressing the liver af all. 



Diseases of the Egg Organs. Their Cause and Cure. The fact 

 that there are more cases of egg-bound in late winter shows that an 

 over-fat condition of the abdomen is the greatest cause of egg-bound 

 in hens. It is not always too much feed that causes fat. More often 

 it is lack of exercise and feed of too fattening a character. Active 

 hens like Leghorns very seldom are victims of egg-bound, and from 

 this it can be seen that the trouble is preventable. 



