148 PHEASANTS FOR COVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



It is important to note that fowl enteritis, infects other 

 gallinaceous birds, and that pheasants on overcrowded grounds 

 and those reared in the neighbourhood of crowded poultry 

 runs are liable to contract the disease. 



A frequent cause of enteritis in young pheasants is the 

 presence in the intestinal tract of a sporozoon micro-organism, 

 which is known as Goccidium avium (Silvestriui and Rivolta) 

 and also as (Joccidium tenellum (Ruilliet and Lucet). During* 

 the summer of 1910 a large number of young pheasants 

 suffering from enteritis were sent to the Field laboratory for 

 examination, and in by far the larger proportion of these the 

 disease was found to be produced by this micro-organism. 

 The symptoms of the disease are loss of appetite and 

 emaciation, with constipation followed by diarrhoea, which is 

 often brick red, more often whitish, then greenish. Death 

 occurs in two or three days, though in adult birds the disease 

 may last a fortnight or may become chronic, as the old birds 

 are more resistant to the disease. In young birds the course 

 of the malady is very rapid and the mortality is very high, 

 60 to 70 per cent, of the young birds dying, according to 

 Neumann. The disease is very infectious, the cysts of the 

 parasites are passed out with the droppings of the birds, and 

 the ground being thus infected, the food of others becomes 

 contaminated, and the disease spreads with alarming rapidity. 

 There is small hope of effecting a cure in these cases, as the 

 bowel is generally largely infested by the parasites before any 

 of these are discovered. 



Another point to be remembered is that the disease may be 

 found not only in pheasants, but in the common fowl, and that 

 the adult bird may be able to resist the effects of the parasites ; 

 so that while she herself may not be suffering, she, as mother 

 or foster mother, may and often does contain the germ of 

 the disease, and be able to infect the young pheasants. The 

 greatest mortality seems to be between the ages of three weeks 

 and six weeks ; after that the birds become more able to 

 resist the disease. The treatment is chiefly preventive; the 



