GAPES IN CHICKEN8. 209 



should be delayed ten or twelve hours, at least, after the shell is 

 " pipped," as it is termed, and then operate with a very careful 

 hand, and avoid the breaking of the blood vessels, and if the 

 egg is not wholly absorbed by the chick, you should not liberate 

 it entirely until that is effected. 



The most natural, and the most healthy food for chicks, 

 during the first few days of their existence, is boiled eggs, 

 which may, if you please, be mixed with bread soaked in 

 milk, or pounded crackers. This food is only recommended 

 in rearing the most valuable breeds. Our common breeds can 

 hardly expect such dainty fare. During the first twenty-four 

 hours, they require no food whatever, and the less they are 

 disturbed, the better. 



After chicks are a week old, they may eat a variety of food 

 with safety, but avoid fine Indian meal, unless it be mixed with 

 some lighter food, as it will bake or harden in their crops, and 

 kill them. Wheat screenings, buckwheat, wheat, and barley, 

 are excellent food. Rye is not good ; it is astringent. Indian 

 meal and bran, mixed, are good, but not recommended as a 

 constant feed. Various other things m-ay be fed to advantage, 

 such as sour milk, boiled potatoes mixed with meal, &c., that 

 the breeder's own good judgment will dictate. Mr. P. Melendy 

 writes me as follows : 



: For the first two weeks after the chicks are hatched, I feed corn 

 ground in a coffee mill. I grind it very coarse. I also give them 

 hard boiled eggs, and plenty of clean water, and thick milk. I then 

 feed on corn, as above, and whole wheat 



GAPE S IN CHIC KENS. 



The following communications to the Northern Farmer are 

 valuable, and throw much light on this subject : 



GAPES IN CHICKENS. I have tried nearly all the various remedies 

 going the rounds in the various papers of the day, for gapes in 

 chickens, such as sulphur, soap, pepper, spirits of turpentine, and 

 various other remedies too numerous to mention, without any bene- 

 ficial results ; and why ? because any of these medicines, either given 

 or fed to them in their food, can never reach or remove the cause, 

 which is nothing more or less than a worm in the windpipe, where 

 none of these medicines can ever' reach them. For the last two years 

 I have tried the method of extracting these worms, (which is very 

 simple, and easily done,) and have never failed in a single instance to 

 effect a cure ; the method is this : take a quill from a hen's wing, strip 

 the feather from each side to within an inch of the end, with a-pair 



