GAPES IN FOWLS.

Patea Mail, 3 July 1882, Page 4

GAPES IN FOWLS.

The two most terrible complaints among young chickens (says the Mark Lane Express) are cholera and the gapeworm. The former attacks delicate broods, and they' often die off by the half-dozen. It is preventible, but scarcely can it be said that it is curable. Directly it is noticed that a young chicken is clogged at the vent and troubled with frequent diarrhoea it should be moved to a fresh spot, and not only it but the whole brood, before any more are attacked, and the feeding regulated accordingly. All loose food should be given up, and binding food, such as boiled rice, given instead. Cut grass may be given regularly, but no water, for it is not necessary where soft food is given in plenty, and it is to drinking much snnwarmed and dirty water that the disease is owing. Again, the gaping chick can hardly ever be cured —the plan should be to remove the brood to a high and dry spot, which has been well limed, feed high and liberally. All sorts of nostrums are advised for killing the gape-worm, but if it is killed, it is at the expense of the chicken’s health or life. Our advice is, as stated above, to move the birds, and annoint the heads of the males regularly, especially nuder and around the beak, with a little ointment in which carbolic acid is a powerful agent, and should there be any of the parasites ready to enter the spleen they would not be very anxious to tackle the carbolic.