122 The Truth About the Poultry Business 



A hen being in a draught and therefore liable to roup 

 may not show it for a few days. When it does appear, the 

 poultryman is at a loss to know how the hen got it. He 

 reads the poultry papers and they tell him that roup is very 

 contagious and he thinks the hen has developed roup owing 

 to the presence of roup germs. He gets out his spray and 

 sprays the place with a disinfectant, and as the wind has 

 gone down the hen begins to get well and he thinks that 

 it was pretty good advice that he read in the poultry papers, 

 since it cured his hen of the roup. If this man happens to 

 use roup-cure at this time, he becomes an advocate of roup- 

 cures. The truth is that the wind ceasing, the draught ceased, 

 and the hen, being no longer in a draught, quickly recovered, 

 just as you often recover quickly from a slight cold. It was 

 not roup-cure, however, nor the spray that made the hen get 

 well; it was freedom from draught. 



Pretty soon the wind comes again and with it more roup. 

 Out comes the spray or the roup-cure, and the place is dis- 

 infected again. But this time we have more wind; wind 

 means draught, and draught means roup, and instead of the 

 hen getting well she gets worse. The poultryman is now 

 absolutely at sea; he does not know what to think, because 

 he has been on the wrong track; he never learns as long as 

 he stays with the cure, or he thinks that he has to lose a 

 certain number of hens anyway. 



One of the queerest things is that every man thinks he 

 has just the right kind of a poultry house, although he may 

 know nothing about draughts or about comforts for the hen. 

 Looking at some of the little sweat-houses one is amazed to 

 think what a hard time the hens in them must have. When 

 one thinks of how one would like to live in one oneself, the 

 prospect appeals about as much as taking the coal oil treat- 

 ment. 



