Avoid Stale Ground.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 121, 24 May 1935, Page 14

Avoid Stale Ground.

Stale ground is by far the greatest enemy of health among poultry. Chicks and adults alike improve their profit out of all knowledge when they can be moved, at a suitable time, from bare foul runs to clean short grass or even fresh ploughed land. Moving the sleeping quarters of layers at this season is, of course, almost certain to put them out of production, but they can often be allowed to run on clean ground in the jfarden just now, where it would not be possible in spring.

To keep the birds under the most healthy conditions is the cheapest and easiest way to "cure ,, every ailment, and that ie a matter of clean land, clean, fresh nir at night and eheds so constructed that birds are not in contact with their own droppings. Where the first is not possible, confining birds to a clean, light shed, built on intensive lines, with an open, netted front, is healthier than allowing them to mope continually in a stale and dirty yard. For cleaning equipment and shedding, soda in the water ie very useful—washing soda in the ordinary way, l»ut caustic soda where there has been disease. If the cleaning is well done, these are ns effective as mild disinfectants, and arc cheaper. Creosote, as well as preserving the woodwork, is a cheap and powerful disinfectant, most valuable in the poultry run. All the timber in coops, small runs and sheds should be creosoted at least once a year, preferably in the autumn. Where a scratching shed ie rather dark, it may be better to limewash the inside of it instead, but creosote is much more lasting in effect. Either should be thoroughly daubed into all cracks and crevices in the hen house in order to be really effective in preventing the breeding of pests. Isolate Sick Birds. When a sick bird is found, more than her value ie saved, nine times out of ten, by killing her and burning the carcase right away, the saving being in time and trouble ho often ineffectively spent on doctoring. If this ie not done, she must be isolated, both for her own sake and that of the flock. Nature encourages the survival of the fittest only, and nothing is more spiteful than a domestic hen when another ie less robust. Even a short delay in taking a sick bird from the flock may make a case more tedious or hopeless as well as risking infection for others. Metal pens, such as arc used at poultry fihows, make ideal hospital accommodation, as they are light, airy and easily disinfected. The more generally used wooden box, especially when open to the ground, remains a menace to other stock. If a metal pen is not available, the coop used should be well creosoted, and in either case the pen should be set up on a well creosoted bench with litter that can bo changed and burnt daily if the pen is in use. It ia particularly useless to waste time nursing sick birds unless one can take such precautions, but it is better to kill them right away. An Incinerator.

Almost every chick that dies, and certainly every adult bird, has something organically wrong, and has probably suffered from some complaint that can be transmitted to healthy birde unless it is that frequent farm poultry complaint, old age I Open pita are absolutely useless in destroying this undesirable matter, unlese everything that ie put into them is covered with quicklime, which is rarely done. Only too 'ofton in big poultry yards, are carcases left about in runs and sheds for other birds to peck at, and even cat. I Tuberculosis germs can lie dormant for (vears and become active when a suitable host is found. Not that avian tuberculosis is connected with that of human beings, but it can bo transmitted to piga. Then, the minute paraeite that cauece coccidioeis, which is present on moet farnu in thie country, survives in it» I "egg" state for a year or more without 'being killed unlese by burning. In » paper on tumours, by Major T. Dalling, M.R.C.V.S., we are told that some work hae recently been carried out on the "occurrence in fowls nnd ducks of a group of tumoure, whoee cells can be dried and preserved for years, and yet retain the vital activity of the reproducing agent." Roup, coccidiosis and ibleddiead (the disease that kills so many turkeys), as well as many other disease*?, can be carried by wild bird* that nre infected, as well as by fliee and vermin, so that the open pit Is exceedlinuly unhygienic from the poultry point ' of view alone, if dead birds and entrails nre put into it. J Every bird that dies, all litter from a pen of sick chicks and any unhealthy I matter, ehould be burnt without fail-