Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1873 — Salt For Hens. [ARTICLE]

Salt For Hens.

Who first made the declaration that salt will kill a hen? That was tlie doctrine before I was born. My father warned his eldest—your humble servant—as far back as I can remember, and then all the other little Abbots, to exercise the greatest care and dilligence to prevent salt being scattered in the yard where Chanticleer and his flock might eat it and die—for concerning salt, the command to him and. his was, “ thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that tliou eatest thereof thou shall surely die.” And thus the world has believed and thought. Many a time when I have accidentally spilled salt on the ground where the hens were running, I have hurried to cover it over so that the fowls might not eat of it, and so live on. It is wonderful liow we cling to heresies. Now lam fully persuaded that salt may be given to fowls with beneficial results sometimes ; indeed I have seen it with my own eyes, and know it; therefore he who first told the world that salt must not be given to the inhabitants of the poultry yard because it would kill them told a big lie, and every one since that original utterer of that variation from truth who has repeated that statement has lied also—under a mistake. Where the fowl’s eyes close up, and the base of the bill gets sore, and the white, slimy, false mcmbrane'forms in the throat, a friend of mine, a sort of lien fancier, takes a teaspoon of salt, puts some in the eye or eyes, and the rest down the throat, and the hen usually gets' well. This is the croup, and salt seems to be the best remedy for It known. A dose of salt is good for a sick lien, our notions to the contrary notwithstanding.—L. S. A., In Ohio Farmer.