20 Diseases of Poultry 



"Light in the poultry house has been found by a writer 

 a great help in keeping the house clean and keeping the fowls 

 healthy. Probably there is no greater assistance to the dis- 

 eases of poultry than dark and damp houses, and dark houses 

 are frequently damp. In recent years I have had both kinds 

 of experience, those with the hens confined in a large, dry 

 and light house, and with hens confined in a dark house in 

 which a single window looking towards the setting sun fur- 

 nished the only light. Being forced to use the latter build- 

 ing for an entire winter I found it impossible to get it thor- 

 oughly dried out after a rain had rendered the walls damp. 

 By spring some of the fowls that had been confined there 

 began to die of a mysterious disease and a post-mortem ex- 

 amination showed it to be liver disease. Later the roup 

 broke out in the same house and this dread disease continued 

 with the flock for months exacting a heavy toll in laying 

 hens." 



D. Avoid Dampness. — Of all unfavorable environmental 

 conditions into which poultry may, by bad management, 

 be brought, a damp house is probably the worst. Nothing 

 will diminish the productivity of a flock so quickly and 

 surely as will dampness in the house, and nothing is so 

 certain and speedy an excitant to roup and kindred ills. 

 The place where poultry are housed must be kept dry if the 



flock is to be productive and free from disease. 



E. Provide Clean and Dry Litter. — Experience has demon- 

 strated that the best way in which to give fowls exercise 

 during the winter months in which, in northern climates 

 at least, they must be housed the greater part if not all of 

 the time, is by providing a deep litter in which the birds 

 scratch for their dry grain ration. For this litter the Maine 

 Agricultural Experiment Station uses pine planer shavings, 

 with a layer of straw on top. Whatever the litter it should 

 be changed as often as it gets damp or dirty. 



