The Pageland Journal

Many Poultry Diseases
Are Easily Preventable

Though most poultry diseases are curable, they all require more time and work than the average farm flock is worth. Therefore, it may easily be seen that prevention should be the first and most important rule in poultry sanitation and disease control.

Roup, tuberculosis, chickenpox and fowl cholera are the most dangerous diseases affecting chickens.

Most farm poultry houses lack simple and effective method of ventilation. In many houses the fowls are overcrowded, and when this is the case and there is no good method of ventilation, the air is sure to become damp, and we all know that it is in just this sort of an atmosphere that roup thrives. To avoid this condition, see to it that the front of your poultry house has an open space that equals at least one-fourth of the floor space of the building. And allow at least three square feet of floor space for each fowl.

Poultry diseases spread through the droppings of diseased birds. Most flock owners have dropping boards under the roosts, and if they haven't they should have by all means. If a part of the flock is diseased, millions of germs may be removed through the droppings instead of leaving them in the litter to contaminate the other birds. Much of the surplus moisture is also removed through the droppings.

Keep the drinking water pure and clean, and sterilize the vessels every two or three days so long as disease is present in the flock. A teaspoonful of permanganate of potash may be dissolved in all the water it will make purple for drinking water whenever the birds seem in need of a tonic.