POULTRY DISEASES AND THEIR REMEDIES. 1131 



there is some obstruction in the passage from the crop to the 

 stomach. Pour some warm water down the throat, and then 

 knead the crop gently until the conlents seem soft; then hold 

 the head down and the bill open and work at the crop a few 

 minutes longer. Next, give a tablespoonful of castor oil, and 

 shut the fowl up without food for twelve hours or more. If 

 this course of treatment does not benefit the fowl, cut open the 

 crop, and remove the contents with a teaspoon handle. Make 

 the cut, which should be about an inch long, near the top of the 

 crop. After the crop has been emptied, oil the finger, and pass 

 it carefully, as far as possible, down the passage to the stomach. 

 Lastly sew up the cut, but do n't sew all the edges up together ; 

 take two or three stitches in the cut of the crop, and then sew 

 up the outer skin separately. Keep the fowl on soft cooked 

 food, and but little of that, and away from the other fowls for 

 a week or so. Give no drink for two or three days after the 

 operation. In making the cut take care not to injure any 

 large blood vessel. 



Egg-bound. When a hen mopes around with hanging 

 wings, appears in distress, and goes often to the nest, but does 

 not lay, she is egg-bound, and the first treatment should be a 

 large dose, say two tablespoonfuls of castor oil ; if this does 

 not give relief within a reasonable time inject sweet oil into 

 the oviduct. 



Eggs Broken in Oviduct. Inject a teaspoonful of cas- 

 tor oil or sweet oil, but in nine cases out of ten the hen will die. 



Apoplexy is caused by high feeding and exposure to the 

 heat of unshaded yards during hot weather. Sometimes the 

 fowls that are threatened with an attack appear dizzy, but gen- 

 erally they just fall over and die without giving any previous 

 warning of disease. When a dizzy fowl is discovered, pour cold 

 water on the head ; then give a dessert spoonful of castor oil, 

 and put the fowl in a coop placed on the ground in a shady 

 place. Give no food for a day or two, then moderate rations 

 of unstimulating food. 



Soft-shelled Eggs, and eggs without shells, result from 

 lack of shell-forming food, and sometimes from inflammation of 



