Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 81, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1916 — Doctoring Sick Chickens [ARTICLE]

Doctoring Sick Chickens

Generally speaking doctoring sick chickens is a mere waste of time as fai as getting them well goes, though every poultry keeper does more or less of it for experimental purposes, and to enable him to keep his flock in order. The best medicine for an ailing chicken, and usually the cheapest, is a sharp hatchet and a speedy burial. The best of chickens do not live to be very old, so a premature death is not to be deplored if only a hen now and then gets sick. On a farm folks are too busy to be tinkering around with sick chickens. In doctoring the chickens the main object is to see what are the symptoms. In some places the first sick fowl is the sign of a general clearing up of the premises and the feeding to the sick and the well birds of some good poultry powder or tonic. Such diseases as gapes in little chickens are worthy the attention of the poultry keeper. A twisted horse hair or any one of a dozen remedies and devices may be used- with good success and valuable lives saved, but this really comes under the bead of a surgical operation. Often fine chickens are the victims of accidents and these are well worth saving when taken in time. Then, too, as long as a chicken will eat it would seem a hopeful subject, for medicines can be skillfully-combined with tidbits, and there is not the trouble of forcing them down as when the chicken is without appetite. Every drooping chicken should be examined at once, for often a string wound about the neck or some trifling thing will cause a fowl to appear side, and if past remedy it should be killed at once, but if it seems at all hopeful it should be quarantined. Then the premises should get a thorough going over for lice, dampness, filth or lark of fresh air so as to keep the disease from spreading. At the same time a good tonic will not come amiss with extra care in the feeding, and a clean run if possible. Very often the outbreak of disease is the best thing that can happen on a farm, as it calls attention to evils long neglected and paves the way to reform. On one farm when roup took nearly every chicken there was a general reforma tion, and conditions that never should have existed were banished and the fowls put on a paying basis.

Hints to Poultry Raisers. Warmth, dryness, fresh air, dry grain feed, pure water and cleanliness are indispensible in dealing with young chicks. Unless these condi t ions are to be maintained one .had better sell eggs than hatch them. Wheat and slipped oats are excellent feedings of whole wheat bran aid growth of feathers as well as the body. When supplying green food remember that the fresh, crisp quality is particularly attractive to fowls. Seeds sprouted In a warm pface, sprouted oats and crisp cabbage are greatly relished. Chaff makes good litter for young chicks to scratch in. Finely crushed shell should be accessible to the small birds. Chicks are very sensitive across their backs. If you do not use the hen method take this into consideration when supplying artificial heat. When the chicks are allowed on ground be sure that the runs are clean. Soil previously run with poul- • try should have been ploughed or cropped in the interval. A warm hover should be access! ble to orphaned chicks. Sunlight is an important ally in the rearing of young chicks. Watch the young flock. Those that respond readily to wise care, whose growth is unchecked, should form the basis of next year’s breeding pen. For lice, treat locally by dusting the birds with sulphur, then disinfect their quarters. . For gapes, disinfect the runs with carbolic acid and treat affected birds by inserting a feather moistened with kerosene into the throat. SHOULD THE LABEL BE REMOVED? The wire-fastened label on fruit trees should not be discarded at planting time, unless one be prepared to make a written record of trees planted, stating number of and position in the field. It should, however, be shifted from stem or trunk to a branch and so attached that there will be enough loop or opening to permit of expansion or efllargement of branch for two growing seasons, after which time the wire will have sufficiently rusted and weakened that it will no longer endanger the branch by strangulation. Failure to attend tD this little matter is the cause annually of the death of thousands and tens of thousands of nursery trees. The best system of all is that o 2 using, instead of depending upon these little markers w£ich are quickly defaced, permanent metallic labels hung loosely from a branch by a soft easily twisted galvanized wire.-