26 . Diseases of Poultry 



but in the opinion of the present writers not so desirable as 

 this, he went on to say : " Water-borne diseases are frequent 

 in the poultry yard. Clean and disinfect your drinking- 

 fountains (and you must) ever so well, if you are permitting, 

 consciously or unwittingly, to run at large one bird sick with 

 any of the contagious diseases of the head parts or with bowel 

 diseases, you may count on that water supply being con- 

 taminated in less than one hour's time. In the case of a 

 large flock affected with flagellate diarrhea I have myself 

 found the flagellates in less than one hour's time in the drink- 

 ing water which had been sterilized and placed in thoroughly 

 disinfected fountains. Do you not see where such a condi- 

 tion as this forces you? Right up against the principle of 

 the individual drinking cup. Ridiculous, do you say? Not 

 a bit. I did not say 'the individual drinking cup,' but the 

 'principle of the individual drinking cup.' Boards of health 

 are recognizing that by means of the common, public drinking 

 cup foul and terrible diseases are being spread among people. 

 It is just so with your poultry, and while you cannot adopt 

 the individual cup you can incorporate the principle of it 

 in your hygienic methods by adding . . . one of the 

 antiseptics named. It is true, in the proportions named, 

 these remedies do not disinfect the water, only act as antisep- 

 tics, that is, act to hinder the developement of bacteria 

 and other microbes. The water itself should be changed 

 frequently. This hindering of microbian growth occurs not 

 only in the fountain but is kept up in the intestinal tract." 



III. The Land 



One of the most important considerations in poultry sani- 

 tation is to keep the ground on which the birds are to live, 

 both as chicks and as adults, from becoming foul and con- 

 taminated. This is not a very difficult thing to do if one 



