DISEASES OF CHICKENS TREATMENT 339 



Egg Eating. 



The habit of egg eating may be caused by the nests being low and near 

 the light. The hens get into them, scratch around and break the eggs and 

 thus form the egg-eating habit. Soft shelled or broken eggs about the yards 

 may be a cause. 



Treatment. Place all nests at least 2 feet above the floor and in a medium 

 dark place. Remove all signs of broken eggs. The fowl detected should be 

 removed to a different place. 



Dump a pail of egg shells in the yard and mash some of them. One 

 dose should cure the egg eaters. If it does not, get more and keep them 

 constantly on hand. "This is a positive cure for egg eating" writes a raiser 

 who ought to know. 



Remove the inside of an egg through an opening in one end. Mix the 

 contents with a little pepper; put them back into the shell and stick a piece 

 of white cloth over the broken part. Put this where the egg eating hen can 

 peck it. After she has tried to eat it she will seldom bother about eating her 

 eggs again. 



Feather Eating. 



It is usually due to a poultryman's carelessness in some way. Over- 

 crowding, improper feeding or lack of exercise are prime causes of these habits. 



Bare patches and injured feathers are signs of feather eating. It is more 

 common during the molting season. 



Treatment. See that the birds get all the animal food they need. Keep 

 them busy scratching for their food. Isolate the offender for a time. 



Drop a piece of sulphate the size of a small cherry in the throat of the 

 bird. Repeat the third day. 



Give the fowls plenty of salt in their feed and they will seldom acquire 

 this habit. 



Boil oats till soft and plump, and into a pail of this mixture stir a good 

 pinch of salt and one quart of beef scrap. Feed this to the birds. 



Mix some boiled finely cut cow's liver with oats and feed every morn- 

 ing. 



Give sour milk to drink and cover the floor with clover chaff to keep the 

 fowls busy scratching. 



Gapes. 



Gapes is a disease which develops in small chicks and is caused by the pres- 

 ence of a parasite worm which attaches itself to the mucus lining of the wind- 

 pipe. 



The worm which causes this disease is sometimes called the red worm 

 or the forked worm because of its color and the fact that the male and female 

 are firmly grown together in forked shape. The heads of both are attached 

 to the mucous membrane of the windpipe, sucking the blood and causing an 

 irritation and obstruction of the passage to such an extent as to interfere 

 seriously with the breathing. 



