CHICKEN CHOLERA 69 



which allows the escape of blood, as this fluid is even more Tirulent than the ezore- 

 ment ; wringing the neck is a quick and easy tnethod of destroying the life. Once 

 killed, the bodies are to be taken beyond the limits of the poultry-run and deeply 

 buried. * 



" If it is decided to keep the sick birds till they die or recover, they should be 

 placed in an inolosure by themselves, as far as possible from the healthy ones, 

 where they may be cared for without entering, so that there will be no danger of 

 carrying particles of the excrement on the boots. 



" 3. Healthy birds must be placed on disinfected grovmds. — If a piece of land is 

 at hand to which the sick birds have not bad access, and which is consequently 

 free from the contagion, the healthy birds should be penned upon it ; but if all 

 the land is infected, then a piece is to be selected and thoroughly disinfected 

 with the solution mentioned further on in this book. The fowls are to be re- 

 stricted to this disinfected ground for several months, or even a year or more if 

 practicable. The drinking-vessels and feeding-troughs are to be new, or if used 

 before they must be soaked for twelve hours with the same solution before being 

 placed in the new inclosure. 



" 4. Observations to be continmed to note the first rewppewramceof the disease, — Some 

 of the fowls, though well at the time of removal to disinfected quarters, may be 

 infected with the disease, and after the^period of incubation, which varies from 

 three to twenty days, wiU sicken. It is necessary, therefore, to make a careful 

 inspection of the excrement each morning for at least three weeks after the sep- 

 aration of the sick fowls. If yellow urates are discovered the birds must be 

 watched until the sick one is detected. To facilitate the early discovery of such 

 sick fowls and prevent infection of the healthy ones, it is advisable, where prac- 

 ticable, to separate the birds into lots of two or three each at the start ; and this 

 separation may always be practiced as a last resort where the disease successfully 

 defies our efforts for a considerable time; but where this is impossible a little 

 patience will generably enable one to pick out the sick before any harm has re- 

 sulted. As soon as the sick bird is removed the excrement must be scraped up 

 and burned, and the run must be again sprinkled with the disinfectant; or the 

 well birds may be changed to fresh ground as before. This method of manage- 

 ment is to be continued as long as new cases of the disease occur. 



" 5. Disinfection. — Foi this disease we have a very cheap and most effective dis- 

 infectant. It is a solution made by adding three pounds of sulphuric acid to forty 

 gallons of water (or one fourth pound of acid to three and one half gallons of water) 

 and mixing evenly by agitation or stirring. This may be applied to small surfaces 

 with a common watering-pot, or to larger grounds with a barrel mounted on wheels 

 and arranged like a street-sprinkler. In disinfecting poultry-houses the manure 

 mnst be first thoroughly scraped up and removed beyond the reach of the fowls; 

 a slight sprinkling is not sufficient, but the floors, roosts, and grounds must be 

 thoroughly saturated with the solution, so that no particle of dust, however small, 



^Not buried, but burned. The futility of burial for the eradication of such diseases as this 

 is shown by the fact that their germs have been found by Pasteur in pits where animals that 

 had died with splenic fever had been buried for twelve years, and as virulent as in animals 

 recently dead. The same scientist has shown that these germs are propagated from burial-plta 

 through the agency of earth worms.— [Ed.] 



