THL TROUBLL5OML GAPE WORM. 111 



attain. I hare never seen a case of gapes, nor have I had any trouble with intestinal worms In 

 niy own fowls. 1 have frequently been able by reference to authorities on poultry diseases to 

 indicate intestinal worms as a probable cause of troubles about which readers of the paper 

 asked me, and in many such cases treatment for worms has seemed effective, furnishing rea- 

 sonable grounds for concluding that worms caused the trouble, though I must say that in more 

 than one case in which satisfactory result of treatment for worms was reported to me the 

 correspondent had not been able to discover worms, and could only say that after applying tbe 

 remedies conditions improved. So I am in the position, not of an authority on this or other 

 diseases, but of a plain poultryman with perhaps a little more than average familiarity with 

 both unprofessional statements of cases and the professional descriptions of diseases and pre- 

 scriptions for the same. 



The Gape Worm. 



The disease known as the " gapes'' takes its name from a small red round worm wnich 

 attaches itself to the mucous membrane of the windpipe. The conspicuous symptom of the 

 disease is the gaping which gives it its name. As has been said, gaping, while the character- 

 istic symptom of this disease, is not peculiar to it, but is a symptom in several other troubles. 

 So to make sure of the nature of the trouble, and of the proper treatment to apply, the 

 windpipe should be examined for worms. If they cannot be detected by opening the mouth 

 c,f the bird wide and looking into the passage, take a stiff feather, not too large, and having 

 Gripped the quill to leave only a little brush at the end of it, put it gently down the wind- 

 pipe, turn once or twice, and then withdraw. If there are gape worms present some should 

 be found adhering to the feather. If the worms are found, the only way to treat them 

 Affectively seems to be to operate on each chick separately with a feather, as just described, 

 or with a looped horse hair, or a gape worm extractor made of fine wire. Anyone can 

 make such an extractor for himself, using No. 30 wire. Take a piece about 12 or 14 inches 

 long, double it, and then twist the two ends so that a loop just wide enough to go down the 

 windpipe, and half to three-quarters of an inch long is left at one end, while the wires twisted 

 together for the rest of their length, make the long handle for the instrument. When this 

 is inserted in the windpipe, and turned around, the worms are cut loose, and what are not 

 withdrawn with the wire will be coughed up by tbe chick. Several other remedies have been 

 given. One that used to be very generally recommended was to put the chicks in a box, and 

 cause them to inhale lime dust. This treatment seems to have survived on paper rather than 

 in >;ttisfactory practice, for though it seemed to have the indorsement of many writers I 

 never could learn that it was effective. 



When the disease is discovered on premises, give tbe affected birds the individual surgical 

 treatment just described; then take precautions to prevent it in future. According to the 

 l.e>t authorities, and also to the most observant poultrymen who have bad to contend with it, 

 the gape worm, (syngamus trachealis), is communicated to fowls through earth worms which 

 they eat from ground on which chickens with the gapes have run. The eggs and embryos of 

 the gape worm are scattered over the ground, some in the excrement and some coughed up 

 by the sick birds. They may be taken by other chicks or fowls direct from the ground, but 

 the common method of receiving them is believed to be through earth worms. It is said to 

 have been shown conclusively that they are taken into the digestive tract of earth worms, and 

 may l>e carried for some time there, and communicated to the chick by the worms it eats. 



Sometimes the infested tract is small, and trouble may be avoided by fencing the chicks 

 out of it. A lady in Pennsylvania wrote me some years ago that she found she bad no 

 trouble with her chicks if she kept them away from a particular spot in the garden. 



A poultryman, some time ago, stated in one of our leading poultry journals that he raised 

 chicks on infested ground by keeping them confined while small to pens or sheds, the ground 

 under which had been treated with lime. In these enclosures the chicks could get no worms, 

 and were free from gapes, while those outside soon became diseased. He says that he has 

 found that if chicks are kept oft' an infested piece of ground for three years few gape worms 

 will be left in it. 



Where the gape worm is prevalent it is a most serious pest. It abounds most on wet heavy 



