Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1868-06-04
IAgrienltmral department.
GAPEs In CHICKENS.

Prevention is better than cure. Being a
farmers wife and having raised poultry for
the last eight years, and witnessed the breed.
ing of all kinds upon an extensive scale for
some previous seasons, I can state positive
ly that there is no occasion to waste paper
in writing about insects in the head, or in
Ia s'tforamen under the wing" as gapes are
not to be feared by. any one having the
slightest pretensions to know aught Of poul-
try. Unnatural treatment, and keeping
the little ones on ground which is poisoned
by numbers having been on it before, is the
cause. fneYer had case of gapes or any
disease, because, I know how to prevent it,
and prevention is better than cure but my
method of prevention is not to examine the
top of the head, or search under the wing.
Women, of an age more mature than mine,
may gossip about disease and doctoring, but
common sense and simple observation prove
clearly that if grown poultry are not crowd
ed, and have comfortable roost, with q
healthy range, they will not be more liable
to roup or any other disease than wild fowl
or game, and practical knowledge has prov
ed to me that there is no disease at all which
young chickens can be subject to, when i'm:
properly managed, that can attack them if
kept on some portion Of the premises where
the older fowls have no access. If have
not been able to stop the hens having young
broods from bringing them round to the re-
sort of the older fowls, use small coops
about two feet square, two feet high in
front, with spars, and eight inches high be-
hind, which gives the boards on the roof a
good slope; put board in front and but
ton it fast at night, which keeps out ver-
min, for, though there is no bottom to the
coops, by moving them daily I never knew
an instance of rat or skunk scratching un-
der. - IL .,.... .-.,... .... .
Mentioning bottoms, it may be as we'll to
say that if any one talks of putting chick
ems on anything but the ground, he knows
nothing about rearing poultry even in cold
spring weather, that is the proper and nat.
ural place for them. If very wet, q little
straw, till it is drier, will be all THAT'S neces-
sary, and if the coops are moved every day,
the right way is to place the dry straw, or
any substitute, on the ground, and then
move the coop on it. l am particular in
trying to make myself understood in re-
spect to broods being on Mother Earth, be-
cause it is essential; and where no better
place exists, these coops can be put in a
gardentill the chickens begin to do mis-
chief, which will not be for the first ten
days !; in fact if there is uneccupied ground
for the coops to be moved, the little ones
will do good rather than harm, as they pick
up great quantities of insects. ..-
A gentleman who has had poultry raised
on his beautiful estate for the last six years,
corroborates what 1 say from my shorter
experience. He says that whenever there
has been gapes, it has been on ground
where poultry has been kept, in consider
able numbers, but even there, when hen
has stolen her nest and kept her brood away
from the haunts of the old fowls, there has
never been sing case; and again, when
ever he has erected new homesteads, there
was an instance of gapes the first year. %
1t is folly to think that white-washing
roosts, or giving this mixed in the food, or
put in the water, will prevent disease, if the
soil on which they live is stained by excre-
ment. Any animal suffers much from eflu-
via arising from the dung. Poisoned soil.
as. much as by limited range, or too great
numbers kept, is the chief cause of gapes.
= 80, Cor. Country Gentleman.