Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 268, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1917 — RIDDING THE FLOCK OF TUBERCULOSIS [ARTICLE]

RIDDING THE FLOCK OF TUBERCULOSIS

If your chickens are free from tuberculosis, every precaution, within reason, should be taken to keep that freedom. I don’t know that it is spreading any faster than usual, but the interchange of birds, the buying of fowls on the open market for fattening purposes and allowing chickens to follow infected herds of cattle are some of the things that spread the disease, says a writer in Farm Progress. Tuberculosis is tuberculosis whereever it is found. If there happens to be a consumptive patient in the family or near the premises, see that the birds are kept awaj from any and all the patient’s z If the common-sense plan of burning the sputum and all other discharges is adopted, there will be little danger from this source. A chicken that acquires tuberculosis is a menace to the ■whole flock.' Fowls

suffering from this disease scatter it through their droppings, from open breaks in the skin and from the secretions of the nose and mouth. The germs of the disease are dropped in the dust, they are scattered through The yards?in the scratching places and the dust holes and on the edges of feeding troughs and watering vessels. Of course the best way of getting rid of the disease is to kill off the whole flock, burn the -bodies, disinfect the premises and start all over again. But it is not very, practical where you can ill afford the loss of the whole flock, to say nothing of having to start once more at the very beginning. This should not be done unless there is every indication that it is really tuberculosis that is killing off the birds. Sometimes the cholera is at fault when tuberculosis gets all the blame, but one is about as bad as the other. the flock and it is decided to fight it, no half-way measures will be of any use. The fight will have to be persistent and radical measures be used. Every bird that shows signs of the trouble may as well be killed at once. There will be enough of them infected without any early external indications to make the slaying of the evidently: diseased ones a necessity. Burn all the carcasses. There is no other way of getting rid of them. Where it is possible new yards and houses should be established for the apparently healthy birds. The old houses may as well be burned to the ground. They would be dangerous for years if allowed to stand. Where the houses are well built and of a permanent character they should be left standing, but all the fixtures, nesting equipment and other fixtures, should be torn out and burned. Keep the droppings cleared away daily and use plentj' of germicide on the walls, the floor and the roosts.