Vol. LV. No. 2400 . 
NEW YORK, JANUARY 25, 1896. 
$1.00 PER YEAR. 
MAPES TALKS “HENS BY THE ACRE : 1 
FIGHTING ROUP AT WHOLESALE. 
" A Balanced Ration ” as Poultry Medicine. 
( Concluded .) 
“ Balanced Ration ” Comes In. —Do I consider the 
disease contagious ? Most assuredly I do, when the 
conditions are right. Ah ! Then there are conditions ! 
Can you tell what they are ? 
Hardly I Some things which I have observed, lead 
me to suspect that the diet has something to do with 
it, as well as the environments. I am inclined to 
think that if a hen has a properly balanced ration, 
she will have vigor enough to resist infection. I be¬ 
lieve that one of the requirements of the latter, is a 
certain propor¬ 
tion of animal 
food. My flock 
was improving 
nicely the early 
part of last 
winter, and by 
January 15, we 
were getting a 
good many 
eggs. About 
this time, my 
supply of meat 
scrap gave out, 
and I could not 
obtain any for 
some time. At 
the same time, 
we were busy 
harvesting ice 
and neglected 
securing skim- 
milk with 
which we were 
mixing the 
morning’s feed. 
The egg yield 
fell off sharp ; 
in fact, almost 
ceased, and in 
a short time, 
roup broke out 
in a severe form 
in nearly all 
the flocks. 
Another straw 
pointing in the 
same direction, 
i s that I at- 
tempted to 
raise my young 
chickens that 
year without 
animal food. 
A mixture of 
wheat bran and 
corn meal with cracked corn was the principal feed. 
This might have been all right with a few who could 
roam about and forage for worms, bugs, grasshop¬ 
pers, etc.; but with over 1,000 on a small space, such 
morsels were soon unobtainable. 
Roup has always been called a winter disease which 
usually disappears, or is greatly abated, with the ad¬ 
vent of warm weather, and incidentally of a chance 
to forage for such food. Putting this and that to¬ 
gether, I began to reason that an exclusive grain diet 
furnished too much carbonaceous material or fat- 
formers. In Nature’s effort to secure sufficient muscle- 
makers, more carbonaceous food was taken into the 
system than could be assimilated. This surplus of 
carbonaceous matter might clog up the system, and 
jnake it more susceptible to infection. 
Again, a hen is an omnivorous animal, and I suspect 
that there is a difference between a certain amount 
of muscle-makers in vegetable food and the same 
amount in animal food which has once gone through 
the process of digestion which is not fully understood. 
Look at the difference in the digestive apparatus of 
herbivorous animals like the ox or sheep, with their 
four stomachs, and the hen with her gizzard. 
The Theory Tested. — I put a good deal of stress 
upon this point, as I believe that it occupies an im¬ 
portant part in the study of the subject of balanced 
rations. I had a half-dozen chronic cases of roup in 
my hospital, and I concluded to do a little experiment¬ 
ing. Accordingly, about August 1,1 put three healthy 
cockerels with them, and began feeding them with a 
liberal proportion of animal food in the form of meat 
scrap and milk curd or pot cheese. They were obliged 
to drink from the same basin, and eat from the same 
trough. I kept them upon this diet for six weeks, 
and in spite of the fact that they were closely con¬ 
fined in that building which had contained hundreds 
of cases of roup and had never been disinfected, the 
cockerels remained perfectly healthy. After six weeks 
of this treatment, I concluded to put them upon an 
exclusive corn diet, and see whether I could clog up 
their systems with surplus carbonaceous matter. 
They had fresh w ater every day, the same as before, 
and all the good corn they would eat. At the end of 
nine days, two of them had contracted the disease, 
and on the 13th day, the third one had it. 
After a few days, when the disease was well devel¬ 
oped, I put in two fresh, healthy birds, and placed 
them upon a diet containing about half the amount of 
meat scrap and pot cheese as in the first case. These 
two cockerels contracted the disease in just four weeks, 
and in the meantime two of the first lot of three had 
recovered. “ That doesn’t prove anything,” you say ? 
It may be that it takes four to six weeks to contract 
the disease, I told myself. So, I decided to put in 
two more healthy birds, and put them upon a diet of 
corn at once. This I did December 6 ; up to yester¬ 
day (December 13), they showed no symptoms of roup, 
but to-day, I notice that one of them is affected, and 
1 fully expect the other to take it in a few days. 
What Roui* Is.—What are the first symptoms? 
Where the disease is the result of contagion, the first 
symptom is a watery discharge from the nose. After 
a few days, the discharge becomes of the consistency 
of thick syrup> 
and has a pe¬ 
culiar, offen¬ 
sive odor. As 
the disease ad¬ 
vances, the 
bird, although 
retaining a 
good appetite, 
loses flesh 
rapidly. The 
head begins to 
swell, one eye 
and sometimes 
both being 
completely 
closed. Some¬ 
times a thick 
coating forms 
on the tongue 
and mouth. If 
it take this 
form, the odor 
is decidedly dif¬ 
ferent, and 
death speedily 
follows in most 
cases. Iam in¬ 
clined to think 
that there are 
two distinct 
types of the 
disease, ca¬ 
tarrhal and 
diphtheritic. 
In a sporadic 
case, the bird 
evidently takes 
cold, and swell¬ 
ing of the head 
and eyes is the 
first symptom, 
with a watery 
discharge from 
the nose. Loss 
of appetite and 
the offensive smell and thickening of the discharge 
from the nose, are likely to follow, in which case I 
think it becomes contagious, but not before. 
If my supposition (I hardly call it a theory) that a 
properly-balanced ration makes a healthy, vigorous 
bird able to resist infection, and that an excess of 
carbonaceous matter in the ration goes into the circu¬ 
lation, clogging up the system and making it pecul¬ 
iarly susceptible to infection, what a field it opens up 
to our scientific men. Think of the joy of being able 
to raise a herd of cattle with vigor enough to resist 
the deadly baccilli of tuberculosis ! Why, in 10 years, 
we could stock the country with healthy cattle, to 
say nothing about what might be accomplished by 
carrying the same idea into the feeding of the human 
race ! Gentlemen, will you take it lip and sift it ? 
Orange County, N, Y, o, w, m. 
A VERMONT ROAD MADE FROM A MUDHOLE BY PLOW, SCRAPER AND STONE WALL. Fig. 19. See Page. 50. 
