Chicken Diseases and Treatment

By Patricia Earnest
Published on March 1, 1974
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PHOTO: FOTOLIA/ NINO PAVISIC
Feed your chickens onions and garlic as a preventative for worms.

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.

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