390 POULTRY BREEDING AND MANAGEMENT 



looks like custard and again it is more or less dry and firm. 

 Unless the chick has been dead for some time the yolk is 

 not putrid, but merely stale. 



"The chick as a whole appears more or less anasmic and 

 emaciated. The muscles of the wings, breast and legs may 

 be almost completely wasted away." (Bulletin 74, Storrs 

 Station.) 



The remedy suggested is the use of sour milk, though this 

 is rather in the nature of a preventive than a cure. The 

 chicks usually become affected before they are four days 

 of age and very seldom after that. It has been found that 

 by feeding sour milk just as soon as the chicks are ready 

 to eat or drink, the ravages of the disease may be checked. 

 "Whether the lactic acid germ of the sour milk kills the white 

 diarrhoea germ or whether from the sour milk the chick 

 derives the strength and vigor that enables it to throw off 

 the disease, has not been very clearly shown. At any rate, 

 the Storrs experiment offers strong endorsement of the 

 practice of feeding sour milk or buttermilk to young 

 chicks. 



That there are other disease germs which prey upon the 

 young chick has been demonstrated at the Oregon Station. 

 A different organism was found in chicks dead in the shell 

 and in hatched chicks that died later with symptoms of 

 white diarrhoea. "When healthy chicks were inoculated 

 with the germ it proved fatal, though when healthy chicks 

 were brooded in the same brooder as the others they were 

 apparently unaffected. 



So far as the white diarrhoea investigations have gone 

 it has been established beyond doubt that it is a bacterial 

 disease. No remedy has been discovered. It has not been 

 shown, however, that the poultry-keeper is helpless before 

 its ravages. The encouraging feature of the situation is 

 that high vitality in the chicks seems to carry a certain 



