PHEASANT RAISING IN THE UNITED STATES. 
37 
enough permanganate of potash may be added to the drinking water to give the water 
a claret-red color. The coops, feeding utensils, drinking vessels, and runs should be 
disinfected, as previously directed (see p. 35). As a preventive measure, incubators 
and brooders should be cleansed and disinfected, and, prior to incubation, whether 
natural or artificial, the eggs should be dipped in 95 per cent alcohol or in a 4 per cent 
solution of some good coal-tar disinfectant. 
Gapes or gape disease.; —The disease known as gapes is particularly fatal to young 
pheasants. The two names given above are derived from its chief symptom. It is 
caused by a worm called Syngamus trachealis, the generic name, Syngamus, recogniz¬ 
ing the permanent sexual union that exists between the male and female. For this 
reason the worm is also called the branched worm, forked worm, and Y worm. From 
its color it is known as the red worm. Attached to the wall of the chick’s windpipe 
. by means of the sucker on the head end of both male and female portions, it is only 
with great difficulty loosened by sneezing and coughed up. Death usually results 
from suffocation due to obstruction of the windpipe by the large, well-fed worm dis¬ 
tended with blood drawn from its host, or to the presence of a few worms and excessive 
mucus combined, or again, to the presence of a large number of worms. 
In addition to the symptom of gaping, there is a peculiar stretching out of the neck, • 
with an actual gasping for breath. Many claim to be able to diagnose the disease by 
a characteristic sudden, whistling cough somewhat like a sneeze. However, as these 
symptoms might be easily counterfeited by bronchitis, pneumonia, so-called brooder 
pneumonia, which is really a mold infection of the lung, and roupy disease of the lar¬ 
ynx and windpipe, the only sure means of demonstrating the disease is to find the 
worm. 
The usual method of treatment is to take a horsehair formed into a loop, a small 
feather from which have been removed all barbs save those at the tip, a timothy head 
treated in the same manner as the feather, or even (if great care is exercised) a very 
thin wire twisted into a loop, pass it gently down into the windpipe, and, after making 
a few turns, carefully withdraw it. Sometimes these instruments, before being used, 
are dipped in sweet oil, or sweet oil containing a few drops of turpentine. In this way 
the worms are either withdrawn or loosened from their attachment to the windpipe, 
so that the chick can cough them up. Garlic in the drinking water or mixed with the 
food has often proved efficacious. 
Since the disease is spread by the young birds taking in with their food the worms 
and their eggs that have been coughed up by infected birds, one of the first steps in 
treatment is to remove all the birds from the infected ground and to separate the sick 
from the well. The infected ground should be immediately treated so as to destroy 
the gape worms and their eggs. As the earthworm has been shown to be, not an inter¬ 
mediate host, but a carrier of the gape worms or its ova, the surest way of raising the 
young chicks where the ground has probably been infected is to rear them on board 
floors. 
Another method of treatment is fumigation. A smudge may be made from tobacco; 
tar or sulphur may be vaporized; or carbolic-acid fumes may be produced by pouring 
a small quantity into boiling water. Caution must be used in the application of this 
method, as there is great danger of suffocating the birds or of their being overcome by 
the drug effect of the substances volatilized. 
Cramps. —Under the name of cramps, used by the keepers of pheasants, Dr. E. 
Klein, of England, has described a disease which causes great mortality among birds 
during the second and third weeks of life. It begins with lameness in one leg, followed 
the next day by lameness in the other. Death occurs, as a rule, on the third day. 
Post-mortem reveals softening and fracture of the thigh bone and of the bone of the 
leg, associated with the presence of considerable blood in the surrounding tissues. 
The only treatment is to destroy the bird, burn the carcass, and disinfect the grounds 
and houses. 
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