146 PHEASANTS FOR COVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



poultry stock ; but there is no attention paid to the healthy 

 condition of the hens selected for rearing purposes. Apart 

 from the losses amongst the pheasants by the disease, the 

 fact that this disease is not uncommon amongst fowls causes, 

 in some farms, considerable losses amongst the poultry itself. 

 There is only one way of getting rid of the disease that is, 

 stamping out. 



" When once an animal be it fowl or pheasant shows 

 signs of the disease it ought to be safely removed. When 

 in any field where pheasants are reared the disease has made 

 its appearance amongst the young birds, the hens ought to 

 be carefully inspected, and the diseased hens and diseased 

 pheasants removed. Those that are not affected ought to be 

 placed on new ground. A field where the disease has been 

 rife should not be used again for a year or two, and care 

 should be taken that some disinfection be undertaken e.g., 

 quicklime scattered over the field. But I feel sure that, if at 

 the outset no diseased hen is admitted for the rearing, the 

 disease will not make its appearance amongst the pheasants ; 

 for the hens seem to me to be the prime cause/' 



We are also indebted to Dr. Klein for the first accurate 

 description of a very fatal epidemic disease which attacks 

 fowls in overcrowded poultry runs, and from them is apt to 

 extend to pheasant coverts. This disease is termed by Dr. 

 Klein fowl enteritis, or the l( Orpington disease," inasmuch as 

 " one well-known dealer had on his poultry farm, then at 

 Orpington, in Kent, in about two acres of land, a fatal 

 epidemic of fowls, by which he lost, between March, 1888, 

 and March, 1889, over 400 birds." 



He further states the disease to be highly infectious, as 

 the evacuations of the diseased fowls are scattered about 011 

 the ground, contaminating the food which is picked up by 

 the others, and rapidly spreads amongst the entire flock. 

 The symptoms are severe purging of yellow evacuations, 

 aud the fowl is found dead in one or two days. The 

 disease can only be checked by the immediate removal of the 



