DISEASES.
The diseases of poultry may perhaps be more conveniently arranged under the heads of the different parts that are affected than in any more strictly scientific order. We may therefore describe them as affecting the Skin, Lungs and Air Passages, Digestive System, Egg Organs, Brain, and the Organs of Motion.
Skin Diseases.—When fowls are kept on unnatural food, and in closely confined, dirty situations, they are very liable to lose the feathers of the head and neck from a chronic disease of the skin. This complaint may be constantly seen in the fowls in the mews and stableyards in London, where it arises from the dirty, dark roosting places, and absence of fresh vegetable and insect food. Of course a radical cure is out of the question, unless the unnatural circumstances producing the disease are removed; if this is done, and a five-grain Plummer’s pill given on two or three occasions, at intervals of three days, the disease is speedily removed, but the feathers will not be replaced until the next moulting season.
In Cochins which have been highly fed, particularly if peas and greaves have formed part of their food, a somewhat similardisease is often seen; and, as it commences with whiteness of the comb, it is frequently termed “white comb.” The treatment in severe cases is similar to that previously described; but mild attacks are said to yield to the application of turmeric mixed with cocoa-nut oil in the proportion of one part of the former to eight of the latter.
Moulting, being a natural action, cannot be regarded as a disease, but it frequently is much delayed, and the birds evidently suffer in such cases; it is therefore desirable, when fowls are not moulting favourably, to treat them as invalids, giving them food which is more nourishing than usual, such as a little chopped meat, either raw or cooked, keeping them in a warm and sheltered habitation, &c.
Lice often infest fowls to an extreme degree, and cause a great amount of irritation; this inconvenience may be prevented by giving them dry ashes to scuffle in, and keeping the houses clean and well lime-washed. When they are very abundant, flour of brimstone dusted under the feathers will be found a certain remedy; it is conveniently used if tied up in a piece of coarse muslin, or powdered from a flour dredger, or if more convenient, a pound or two may be added to the dust bath.
Diseases of the Lungs and Air Passages.—Roup is the most serious disease occurring in the poultry yard, not only on account of its affecting large numbers at one time, but also from the fact that it is not easily subdued by medical treatment; great confusion and difference of opinion have occurred from several distinct diseases having been confounded under this name. True roup commences with a sticky discharge from the nostrils, at first clear, but afterwards thick and of a very peculiar and offensive smell, the nostrils become partially or entirely closed, and there is consequently some slight difficulty of breathing, and a distention of the loose skin of the under jaw may be noticed; froth frequently appears at the inner corner of the eye, the lids swell, and in severecases the sides of the face swell greatly, the fowl becoming blind; from the discharge being wiped on the feathers of the side and under the wing, they become matted together; and in addition to these symptoms there is extreme thirst. Roup is essentially a disease of the membrane lining the nose, similar in this respect to glanders in horses; I believe it to be highly contagious, and unless a roupy fowl is very valuable would recommend its being at once killed. I think the disease is often communicated by the discharge from the nostrils running into the water out of which the fowls drink. As to treatment, a roupy fowl should at once be removed from the yard, placed in a warm dry room, the nostrils and eyes sponged with warm water, and a solution of ten grains of blue vitriol to an ounce of water dropped into the nostrils, either from the front or through the slit in the roof of the mouth, warm stimulating food, as meal or bread and ale, and a little pepper should be given. Remedies given internally seem to have but very little effect on the disease, but I think I have seen more benefit from half a grain of blue vitriol given once a day in meal than from any other medicine.
Croup, from the similarity of its name is often confounded with Roup, from which, however, it is perfectly distinct, being inflammation of the wind-pipe, the symptoms are a difficulty of breathing and a rattling or peculiar noise in the throat, this, in some cases, is even musical; sometimes thick glairy mucus is coughed up, but there is never any swelling of the face or discharge from the nostrils, the disease is most frequent in damp weather, and yields readily to warm dry housing, and one-twelfth of a grain of tartar emetic.
Inflammation of the lungs is known by a difficulty of breathing, but without the noise of croup, the same treatment with tartar emetic is advisable.
Consumption, arising from the presence of scrofulous matter in the lungs, is produced by cold, damp, bad food, and is also inheritedfrom parents; this disease being hereditary, it is worse than useless to attempt to cure fowls that are affected, as the chicken are certain to be tainted with the disease.
Pip is the name given to a dry horny scale which appears on the tongue, in all those diseases in which the fowl becomes feverish; it is only a symptom of internal fever and not a disease itself, the remedy is to remove the real disease causing it.
Gapes in chicken is caused by peculiar parasitic worms adhering to the inside of the windpipe; they are readily removed by stripping a small quill of its side feather, except an inch of the end, dipping it in spirits of turpentine, and inserting it in the wind-pipe; but as this remedy often excites fatal inflammation, I have suggested fumigation with the vapour of turpentine, by shutting the chicken up in a box, with some shavings moistened with the spirit, as long as they can withstand the action of the vapour, and the remedy has been found very successful.
Diseases of the Digestive Organsare simple in their treatment. A fowl sometimes becomes crop-bound from overdistending that organ; warm water poured down the throat frequently loosens the mass; but, if necessary, a perpendicular incision may be made at the upper part of the swelling sufficiently large to extract the swollen food, and it will be found to close again without the slightest difficulty; the fowl should, however, be kept on soft food for several days afterwards. Inflammation of the stomach, which is situated between the crop and the gizzard, is a very frequent cause of death in highly fed fowls—they mope, refuse to eat, pine away, and die; there is no cure for the disease, but it is readily prevented by the use of natural food—peas, greaves, hemp seed, being rigorously excluded.
In Diarrhœa, five grains of chalk, two grains of cayenne, and five grains of powdered rhubarb may be given, and if the discharge is not speedily checked, a grain of opium and the same quantity of ipecacuanha may be administered every four or six hours.
Diseases of the Egg Organs.—The most important disease of these organs is inflammation of the egg passage, shewn by the laying of soft or imperfect eggs; this complaint is readily remedied by giving one grain of calomel and one-twelfth of a grain of tartar emetic, made into a pill with meal; sometimes soft eggs arise from a deficiency of lime, in which case, a little old mortar rubbish remedies the defect.
The calomel and tartar emetic, which I first recommended for this disease in theCottage Gardener, has been frequently given in other diseases, such as inflammation of the stomach, &c., and I need scarcely say with the effect of aggravating the evil very materially; there is no universal poultry medicine.
Disease of the ovary, or organ in which the yolks are formed, is not unfrequent, when the comb and wattles become like those of the cock, and the hen crows frequently; such birds are generally but erroneously termed hen-cocks, they must not be confounded with the hen-feathered cocks spoken of in the article on Hamburghs.
Diseases of the Limbs.—Cramp in young chicken from exposure to cold and damp is very fatal to early hatches, it can be prevented only by warmth and dryness.
Leg weakness, which is most frequent in rapidly growing chicken and young birds, particularly Cochins, arises from a disproportion between the weight and strength of the animal, the bird in consequence, sinks down upon its hocks; I have found four or five grains of citrate of iron given daily in meal successful in every case in which I have employed it.
Inflammation of the feet, closely resembling gout, I have seen in many cases, particularly in Cochins; the feet become very hot and swell. One grain of calomel at night and three drops of colchicum wine twice a day, I have found afford considerable relief.
The bumble foot of Dorkings, is a swelling occurring in the ball of the foot, not attended with heat, but followed by ulcerationand a diseased growth. I have found that it may, to a great degree, be prevented by having the perches broad and low, not above four feet in height, as the disease is evidently set up in many cases, and increased in all, by the violence with which the heavy birds descend to the ground; from the low vitality of the parts affected, I have found that no treatment is attended with any beneficial results.
Broken wings are best treated by tying the points of the quill feathers together in a natural position and keeping the bird in an empty place, where there is no perch to tempt it to fly. Broken legs may be bandaged round by strips of stout brown paper soaked in white of egg well beaten up with a fork, the leg should be kept steady by two splints of wood until the paper has become dry, when it will be found sufficiently firm to remain secure if wound round with a turn or two of thread.
Diseases of the Brainare not unfrequent in overfed fowls, apoplexy being the most frequent. The birds affected fall suddenly from their perches and are found dead. Little can be done in the way of cure; much in the way of prevention, by abstaining from unnatural food; in an actual attack, if the bird is seen before death, it may be bled by opening the vein on the under side of the wing, but the chances of recovery are but small. Paralysis also arises from the same cause. In vertigo, which depends on an undue determination of blood to the brain, the fowls run round and round or stagger about; letting a stream of cold water on the head immediately relieves, this should be followed by a grain of calomel or ten of jalap, in severe cases it may be necessary to open a vein.
In most of the older poultry books certain nostrums, as rue and butter, are constantly recommended; rue is a violent irritating stimulant, and I am not aware of any disease affecting fowls in which its use is at all likely to be productive of good effects.
King, Printer, 63, Queen Street, Cheapside.