General Considerations 3 



are, of course, certain diseased conditions which demand 

 individual treatment, but in which the treatment is so simple 

 and the outcome is almost certain to be so good, as to justify 

 its employment even in the case of birds of ordinary value. 

 An example of such a condition is found in a crop-bound bird. 



Prevention Rather Than Cure the Ideal 



The aim of every poultry keeper, whether his interest is in 

 the fancy or the utility end of the business, should be to 

 breed and manage his birds so as to prevent entirely, or 

 reduce to a minimum, the occurrence of disease. In other 

 words, the attitude should be that the end to be sought is 

 to prevent the occurrence of disease, rather than to rely 

 on a rather dubious ability to cure it after it is there. Such 

 a standpoint is sound from every point of view ; it is in line 

 with the whole development of modern medicine. The 

 poultry doctor should regard his function as the same as that 

 of the Chinese physician, who is primarily employed to keep 

 the patient from becoming ill, only secondarily to cure him. 



Now there are fundamentally two factors involved in the 

 continued maintenance of good health in poultrj^ (or, for the 

 matter of that, in any other animal) . These are : 



1. A sound and vigorous constitution, which if present, is 

 something innate and "bred in the bone," and which, if 

 absent, must he bred into the stock. 



2. A system of poultry management {including feeding, 

 housing, etc.) ivhich is thoroughly and absolutely hygienic. 



We shall consider each of these factors separately in some 

 detail. 



Breeding for Health, Vigor and Sound Constitution 



To have a high degree of constitutional vigor in the 

 foundation stock is one of the most certain assurances that 



