The usual formula of “burn or bury deeply” is somewhat troublesome, unless you have a furnace running.  A covered pit is more convenient if far enough removed from the house that the odor is not prohibitive.  A post with a tally card may be planted near by.  This part of the poultry farm may be marked “Exhibit A,” and shown first to the visitor during the busy season.  If he is one of those prospective pleasure and profit poultrymen who propose to disregard all facts of biology and economics of production, you may save yourself the trouble of showing him the rest of the plant.  Unfortunately, this scheme is not open to the poultryman who has breeding stock for sale.

I have frequently had the question put to me in the smoker of a Pullman car, “Do not epidemic diseases make the poultry business precarious?” Such questions came from farm-raised men, but not from poultry farmers.  Poultrymen should figure a certain loss of birds just as insurance companies figure on the human death rate, but to all practical intents and purposes the epidemic disease has been banished from the poultry farms and seldom if ever enters the records in answer to the question, “Why do poultry farms fail?”

Some of my readers may take exception to me either in regard to roup or white diarrhoea.  Roup is a disease of the wrong system and careless management.  White diarrhoea, so-called, is a matter of wrong incubation.

The high mortality of young chicks, though not an epidemic disease, shares with excessive cost of production, very much of the responsibility for poultry farm failures.  At the present writing the poultry editors of the country are having much discussion over the conclusion of Dr. Morse of the Bureau of Animal Industry to the effect that white diarrhoea is caused by an intestinal parasite similar to the germ that causes human dysentery.  Dr. Morse’s opportunities for investigation have been somewhat limited and as the intestines of any animal are always swarming with various organisms, it will take very conclusive evidence to prove that the doctor is right.  Practically the naming of the germs that attend the funeral is not particularly important for the reason that it has been thoroughly demonstrated that with good parentage, good incubation and good brooder conditions, white diarrhoea is unknown.

The Causes of Poultry Diseases.

Poultry ailments are assignable to one of the three following causes, or a combination of these:  First, hereditary or inborn weakness; second, unfavorable conditions of food, surroundings, etc.; third, bacteria or animal parasites.

A great many chickens die while yet within the shell, or during the growing process, there being no assignable reason save that of inherited weakness.  To this class of troubles the only remedy is to breed from better stock.  It is as much the trait of some birds to produce infertile eggs or chicks of low vitality as it is for others to produce vigorous offspring.