Common ailments of domestic poultry.
It is not proposed to deal fully with the diseases of poultry in this article, as complete information on the various diseases is available in pamphlet form free on application to the Department of Agriculture. However, a brief outline of the more common ailments of the domestic fowl is given.
Poultry pests
Of the external poultry parasites, probably the most devastating are the poultry red mite and the fowl tick. Both these parasites are of the blood-sucking type, hiding by day in cracks and crevices in the shed and emerging at night to gorge themselves with blood from the unfortunate bird.
Culling the passengers
Whether it be large-scale commercial poultry-farming or in the small backyard flock, it obviously does not pay to keep unproductive birds. The commercial poultry-farmer who is consistently receiving less from sale of eggs and birds than he is paying for poultry-feed, labour and other outlay, can hardly be expected to stay in business indefinitely. In the case of the backyard poultry keeper, while net loss may not be sufficient to cause any serious financial embarrassment, the continued feeding of birds which fail to pay their way is obviously unsatisfactory
