126 The Truth About the Poultry Business 



end of your poultry career you are not one bit wiser than 

 the day you started in. 



This is why many are constrained to say after a long time 

 spent in the business, "I don't know any more about the 

 poultry business than when I began 20 years ago." The 

 substance of the whole thing is that you were wasting your 

 time on roup-cures or spraying or some other wrong road, 

 and consequently you never got on the right track. If roup 

 was caused by something obvious which everybody could see, 

 you would have seen it and avoided it; but it is caused from 

 a very small thing, a draught, that exists only at certain 

 times, and the cause being so small you never find it. Any- 

 one can see the big faults, but it requires patience and time 

 to ferret out the little troubles, which, small though they be, 

 lead to the greatest disasters. 



Many times I have observed fowls in different houses — 

 how they would change their position when I ventilated the 

 house in a different manner. They were trying to tell me 

 by their actions as plainly as though they had told me in 

 words that they were trying to get out of a draught, but 

 I could not detect it because it was so small. They seemed 

 to know more about it than I, and they did. 



Most all manufacturers of roup-cures tell you to separate 

 your roupy hens from the rest of the flock, which is unques- 

 tionably a good idea. You should then, so they say, put the 

 roupy hens in a dry, warm place, free from any draught, and 

 give them roup-cure. That is exactly what you should do, 

 only leave out the cure. Moreover, you should get the hen 

 at the first sign of roup, as she is then easy to cure. As the 

 disease makes headway, it becomes harder, and when it 

 becomes very bad you may as well kill your hen, because it 

 may take her months to recover and she may then have only 

 one eye left. 



