proceedings of the farmers' club. 41 



Gapes in Chickens. 



A j^Piitlcrncii of iiitc'llif^i'iK'o aiul db.'-MMviitiuii writra from Franklin, New 

 York, upon tin* above question as follows: "Tiiis question lias been dis- 

 iissed V)y the Fnrinera' Club, as appears in the Transactions (jf the Aineri- 

 ean Institute for 18G2, pajj^e No. 84, and several opinions advanced as to 

 the probable cause of the disease. A correspondent, though not directly, 

 yet impliedly, attributes the disorder to in-and-in breeding-, want of clean- 

 liness in the roost, &c. Two others, members of the Club, dissent from 

 tliis view, one of whom says 'he lias invariably traced the gapes in chick- 

 ens to feeding them corn meal recently wetted.' The meal, he adds, should 

 be mixeil u day before it is used, if not it swells in the chicken's crop and 

 causes the disease. Neither of these theories appears to me to be sustained 

 by facts. Last year, wishing to change by breed of fowls, I obtained eggs 

 frou) a neighbor whose cliickens were never troubled with the gapes; but 

 I was disappointed by seeing every one of the cliickens hatched from those 

 i''^'^>^, about 80 in number, nmre or less severely atllicted with this distress- 

 ing complaint. I am in tin; habit of cleaning out tl\e roost once a year, 

 and last year I made a new one in a different part of the barn from that 

 which had hitherto been used for this purpose; and when the young chick- 

 ens were confined I used to change the situation of the coop daily, so that 

 neither changing the breed, or cleaning the roost, or changing its site, has 

 had, with me, any appreciable effect in preventing the disease. If the 

 gapes are caused by 'recently wetted corn meal swelling in the chicken's 

 crop,' why does not the disease follow the condition of that organ — ceasing 

 altogether in the morning when the crop is nearly or quite empty, and 

 beginning again only after a full feed? and why will not the substitution 

 of some other food for the 'recently wetted corn meal' immediately allay 

 or wholly remove the trouble ? Why do not very young chickens — those a 

 week or ten days old, and also goslings and old hens fed on recently wet- 

 ted corn meal — have the gapes as well as chickens three or four weeks 

 old ? Three years ago a late brood of chickens picked their living solely 

 from the fields, the hen, which was very wild, never coming near the house 

 until driven in by a scarcity of forage in the fields; yet the chickens all 

 had the gapes. In this case the disease was not caused by corn meal or 

 whole corn, for they had neither till the approach of cold weather. When 

 we consider that the chickens crop is situated upon the ^«r/bo' of the body, 

 and is so clastic that it easily accommodates itself to its contents, it seems 

 ■ ■ me absurd to suppose that the pressing of the :,rop, though ever so full, 

 against so firm and rigid an organ as the windpipe could cause the gapes. 

 The recently wetted corn meal theory, tlun(,'fore, to say the- least, rests 

 upon a very mealy foundation. A few days since I dissected a chicken 

 which had died of the gapes half an hour before. In the windpipe I found 

 nine wurnis, one an eighth of an inch in length about an inch from the 

 larynx, antl the others some two and a half inches lower down, var3-ing in 

 length from one-half to three-quarters of an inch, and of a deep red color. 

 These eight woims, which were about the size of a pin, were all lying 

 together in the windpipe, and completely ol>structed the passage of the; air. 

 On jdacing one of them under the microscope, I had a tolerably fair view 

 of its anatomical structure. The head was oval and a very little larger 



