124 California Poultry Practice 



and nitrate of silver are the quickest remedies, but unless the bird 

 is a valuable one it is safer to kill it and cremate the body. 



Pneumonia. — If hens are kept in good health and given plenty of 

 fresh air, this disease will never trouble us in this State. Debility 

 and closed-up houses are responsible for the condition called pneu- 

 monia. The remedy lies in your own hands; namely, open front 

 houses and good feeding. 



Diseases of the Liver. — These liver troubles are nearly all caused 

 by wrong feeding, and the general impression is that they are caused 

 by too much animal food in the form of beef scrap. But this is not 

 so. Most of it is caused by too much of the carbon-hydrates or 

 starch foods. And the worst of it is that until the fowl is dead, 

 there is nothing sure about what disease it had. And now here is 

 another cause of liver complaint — too much condiments, too much 

 Douglas mixture and copperas solution in the water. Throw it out 

 and give pure water to drink and less condiments. The liver is the 

 most abused organ in a fowl's anatomy. Cut out some of the starchy 

 foods, and turn them on a grass run if possible. Mix castor oil in a 

 little mash feed, allowing a teaspoonful for every hen, then add 

 water to mix all just crumbly. Get a small vial of homeopathic podo- 

 phyllum. These can be dissolved in the drinking water a few days 

 and with proper feeding the fowls will soon be all right. 



Going Light. — This disease is often called consumption, but it is 

 nothing of the kind. Sometimes a hen will begin moping. She stops 

 scratching and seems to take no interest in anything; keeps going 

 lighter and lighter, until she is nothing but a handful of feathers and 

 bone. I have seen where a good run would change things, and that 

 is the first remedy to try. Set some small boy after her with instruc- 

 tions to keep her on a run. Of course, if it is an old case this will 

 not do any good. The trouble is caused by the oil glands getting 

 stopped up. If the gland, found among the tail feathers, can be 

 reopened the hen soon recovers. If it cannot get reopened, annoint 

 the parts with some kind of animal fat; goose oil is good or mutton 

 tallow. Give the hen a little sulphur in feed if she will eat and she 

 has a chance to get over it, but if not attended to, she will always die. 



Liver Diseases Include Congestion, Inflammation, Hypertrophy. — 



As stated, nearly all disease of the liver is due to wrong feeding; that 

 is, an overfeeding of a ration too rich in starch elements. Potatoes 

 are very little but starch; so is the baker's bread fed as table scraps. 

 The scraps consist mainly of potatoes and bread. The liver is the 

 most abused organ in the anatomy of a fowl because it must work 

 overtime to make up for the mistakes made by the feeder. 



In the first stages of congestion, the symptoms are very similar 

 to those of enteritis. There is a lack of color in comb and wattles. 



