BIRDS 129 



Cause. — A specific organism which gains access to the body, 

 principally by the alimentary canal. 



Treatment. — None. It is quite incurable. 



Prevention. — Here is our hope. We can prevent it, if the 

 necessary precautions be taken. Assuming that the infection is 

 taken with the food it will be apparent that wherever an 

 infected fowl's droppings are left, there will be the bacillus ready 

 to be taken into the crop of another bird. 



What is the general practice of feeding? Does not the 

 poultry-woman feed close to home ? Does she not call the flock 

 on to the ground most saturated with the droppings? In this 

 way one or two infected birds spread the disease. The elaborate 

 precautions recommended by experts may not in every case be 

 practicable, but it is within the power of every one to adopt the 

 common-sense measure of feeding as far from the home as 

 possible. In flocks known to be affected, the writer has seen the 

 most marked reduction in the mortality from this precaution 

 alone, while owners possessed of many acres have got rid of the 

 disease by having portable houses and destroying all the old 

 fittings about the homestead, keeping no fowls at all there for 

 one whole winter. Better let the sparrows have the pickings 

 about the barton than retain tuberculosis on the premises. 



CRAMP. 



Cause. — Chickens, by which we include the young of fowls, 

 turkeys, ducks, guinea-fowls and game birds, are subject to 

 cramp which causes the loss of a goodly number every year, as 

 they are left to perish by their mothers whan unable to follow, 

 or, when having strayed from the coop, they cannot return. 

 Wet or frosted grass is the most frequent cause of cramp, and 

 it follows that very early- and very late-hatched birds are the 

 victims. 



Treatment. — Fortunately we have in Elliman's a perfectly 

 satisfactory remedy. The victim of cramp should be taken 

 indoors and gently rubbed with the Elliman's over the limbs 



