DISEASES OF CHICKENS TREATMENT 335 



Symptoms. Loss of appetite, great thirst and high temperature. If 

 a fever thermometer is placed next to the flesh under the wing, it will often 

 register 110 degrees. The crop is usually distended with food which cannot 

 pass owing to the paralysis of that organ. Sleepiness which may last until 

 death. A rapidly fatal disease, always accompanied by copious, yellowish or 

 deep blue green diarrhea. Infection of a large number of birds in one flock. 

 Caution : A combination of indigestion and lice produce symptoms which are 

 very much like those of cholera. Nine-tenths of the reported cases of cholera 

 are not that disease at all. Get rid of the vermin, supply charcoal, grit, feed 

 less corn and you have the best cholera remedy there is. 



Treatment. If sure your chickens have cholera, the treatment should 

 mainly be preventive. Observe cleanliness in every way. Do not use eggs for 

 hatching unless you know they are from healthy stock. Isolate all suspected 

 cases as soon as found. Give these birds a few drops of creolin in their drink- 

 ing water, just enough to turn it slightly milky or give them drinking water 

 in which has been dissolved one-tenth of a grain tablet of corrosive sublimate 

 to a quart of water. If they develop marked symptoms of cholera, they had 

 better be killed and cremated at once. Kill by strangulation or the blow of a 

 club. If blood is drawn it will be a means of infection for other fowls. Spray 

 the building with a 5 percent solution of carbolic acid and then whitewash it. 



A good home remedy in any case of diarrhea and often in mild cases of 

 cholera, is to drop twenty to thirty drops of spirits of camphor on sugar and 

 dissolve the whole in a pint of water; allow no other drink. As a diet give 

 them stale bread soaked in scalded milk and well seasoned with pepper. 



A Prescription. In use for twenty years and found to be one of the most 

 successful remedies ever tried : Carbonate of iron, 8 ounces ; pulverized golden 

 seal, 1 ounce; pulverized rhubarb, 3 ounces; pulverized capsicum, 3 ounces; 

 flowers of sulphur, 8 ounces ; pulverized charcoal, 4 ounces. Mix thoroughly 

 together. Keep in air-tight can. For chicken cholera make a pill of this 

 remedy the size of a small pea and force the sick bird to swallow by forcing 

 the mouth open and dropping into the throat. As a preventive, put 1 tea- 

 spoonful in feed enough for twelve hens. Use this three times a week. It will 

 also increase egg production fifty percent. 



Coccidiosis (Brooder Pneumonia in Chicks Blackhead in Turkeys). 



This disease germ does not usually affect adult fowls seriously but causes 

 severe loss in chicks and turkeys. In chicks it is known as brooder pneumonia 

 and in turkeys as blackhead. 



The same germ causes this disease that produces blackhead in turkeys. 

 Pigeons are particularly susceptible to it and are often responsible for the 

 outbreak in poultry yards as it is spread by contagion. The germ (coccida) 

 multiply very rapidly in the intestines of the diseased fowls and are discharged 

 with the droppings and carried on the feet to the drinking and feed troughs 

 unless they are well protected. 



Symptoms. When adult fowls are attacked, the symptoms are stupid- 

 ness, laziness and sometimes diarrhea. The fowl loses weight although the 

 appetite is retained for a time. 



