380 
The Illustrated Book of Plgeons. 
Young birds in the nest-pan will sometimes be badly affected with roup or incipient canker — 
there is a stage at which it is really hard to know what to call it — the beak and throat being so 
badly swelled they cannot feed. Probably in most of such cases the old birds have affected the 
young ones, and when this is the fact the death of the young will not unfrequently cause the 
recovery of the old birds. We have, however, known the young first affected — usually highly-bred 
birds which have caught cold — and impart it to the feeders, which, being coarse and hardy, would 
never have been infected in any other way. In some cases it maybe that the exciting cause is the 
old birds giving the young food that had not become soft enough to suit the digestive organs of 
the young ; and whenever we had cause to suspect this we would give both parents and young a 
dose of Epsom salts, or a jalap pill ; the young, of course, having only half or a quarter, according 
to size. Medicine given to young pigeons does not, of course, affect the feeders ; but given to 
the feeders will more or less affect both. Hence some give it to the feeders only, but unless they 
also require it this is unwise, as it makes the old birds sick, and injures their feeding power. It is 
better therefore to give the salts direct, the dose for a three-week’s bird of ordinary size being about 
as much as will lie on a threepenny-piece. We have in some cases where the young were unable 
to digest, the crops being evidently full of a watery fluid, opened the beak and held the head down 
so as to empty the sour fluid, or nearly so ; after which the bird has got over its trouble, and 
all the other symptoms disappeared ; in particular, this will often cure a Pouter so affected ; 
but such treatment is only applicable to the larger varieties, and the cases themselves can 
scarcely be called true roup, though the discharge at the beak and nostrils makes it appear 
much the same. 
Sometimes a bird affected with roup will eat nothing at all of its own accord, but will drink to 
excess. In such a case it is best to feed it on pills made with oatmeal and cod-liver oil, and give 
it only an allowance of boiled milk to drink till it is better, and begins again to feed itself. In all 
such cases, and any others where it is necessary to tempt the appetite, nothing will surpass a 
mixture of the various kinds of smaller seeds, which will often be picked up when nothing else 
would be touched. 
Young pigeons when they begin to forage for themselves are very subject to what seems a mild 
sort of roup, in various forms, but all marked by evidently commencing with “ taking cold.” It is 
not uncommon for one symptom to be a loss of power in the limbs. It will tend much to recovery 
in such a case if the floor of the pen in which the bird is kept be covered an inch deep with sawdust 
or cut clover, which will rest the breast and limbs much better than a hard floor ; and it is nearly 
always advisable in such a case to pluck all the tail-feathers, which has a wonderful effect in 
obscure diseases of several kinds in young birds. Plucking the tail is, unfortunately, injurious to 
the show value of Fantails, and of Almond cocks if of a good colour ; but with pale birds or hens 
it rather improves them, tending to a darker tail. 
[In some cases capsules of copaiba appear to exert a marvellous influence on the discharge from 
the nostrils or eyes in roup ; but as it is bad practice to check the secretion suddenly, often 
driving the poison into the system, we would advise their use only in chronic cases, and then to be 
always followed by purgatives. In some instances, however, energetic treatment has mastered 
very severe cases, though complicated with severe secondary symptoms. As an instance we 
give the following, being about as hopeless a case as could well be. In the fall of 1874 we 
received a letter, of which the following are extracts : — 
“Some two or three months ago a distemper seized my stock of pigeons, and carried off a few of the best of them. I thought it 
was roup, and treated it as such, according to prescribed rules. Fora time I got it under, but on returning from a few weeks’ 
residence in a distant part of the country, I found upwards of twenty birds dead — mostly young birds, and some of them very 
