Chicken Diseases and Treatment

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Feed your chickens onions and garlic as a preventative for worms. PHOTO: FOTOLIA/ NINO PAVISIC

Even with modern antibiotics and premixed medicated poultry rations, chickens still get sick . . . sometimes with fairly lethal diseases that can sweep quickly through a flock. We rely on our few hens for their eggs and want them to be healthy, for their sake and ours, so we started digging around in the older farm books and asking questions about the birds' ailments. The remedies we came up with use simple, cheap, easily available ingredients and methods that are surprisingly like those frequently employed in home nursing.

Caring For Chickens

Since the best cure of all is prevention; knowing something in advance of your flock's needs can ward off a lot of trouble. Basically, chickens should be kept warm and dry, get plenty of exercise and eat a well-balanced diet . . . sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Hens left to roam will satisfy their dietary needs and busily keep the local bug population under control (just take care to protect the vegetable garden, because the birds also love young green stuff ).

Onions and garlic fed regularly are a natural preventative of any worms that might be thinking of a home in your fowls' warm innards, and sour milk or buttermilk mixed in their feed or drinking water will deter diarrhea. Feet and droppings in food or drink are a potential source of infection when birds are confined, so equip your chicken house with feeders and watering equipment that force the biddies to observe sanitary table manners.

New birds should be quarantined a few days before joining an existing flock and, to control the spread of parasites and disease, henhouses and brooders should be thoroughly aired and whitewashed between flocks.

During the winter, keep chicken house litter dry and exposed to air by scattering scratch feed around on it every day. This serves the added purpose of providing the hens with exercise so that they stay warm and healthy. On especially cold mornings try adding one tablespoon of kerosene to their drinking water as a pick-me-up.

Chicken Illnesses

Among the actual diseases that infect domestic fowl, diarrhea is the most common. This condition-revealed by white or greenish, loose droppings-can be caused by cold, dampness, dirty surroundings and unclean food. Isolate the patient in warm, dry quarters and give her potassium permanganate solution to drink. To make this remedy, dissolve one tablespoon of the chemical in one quart of warm water. Then, for each bird, take one tablespoon of this concentrated solution and further dissolve it in one cup of warm water. In severe cases use a stronger solution, potent enough to turn a dipped finger slightly brown. (Don't keep potassium permanganate mixture in a metal container.)

Another remedy for diarrhea is Epsom salts in the feed, half a pound per 100 birds or 1/2 teaspoon each. Then feed the sick chickens wheat bran moistened with sour milk or buttermilk.