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Show "poultry 1 HK BLACKHEAD IN TURKEYS Under favorable condition 5 turkey raising has proven to be a vc v profitable pro-fitable industry. Young tutKcyi. ore however, very dc'icatc and require a great deal of care, .in ! destructive diseases sometimes appear 1 sirh :m extent as to discourag the raising f turkeys. Among the most destructive destruct-ive of turkey diseases, attacking oM and young, is the so-called b'ackhcad This disease has for several years pa.t menaced the formerly profitable and highly developed tiiikcy industry of this country, and 's r.i n'dly deputing deput-ing Southern and West-- 1 flocks. The name blackhcaJ is derived from the fact that Mie ltuads of di? cased turkeys frequent turn black, although it his ben u..-cwred thai few young pou'U nave black heads when they di., ana thai many old turkeys do nor. The biack appearance appear-ance of the head, therefor.', th"tioi common, has no nccess'i cy rc'ation to the- blackhead disease. Turkeys dying of other diseases may alio have the head turn black. The scat of the disease lias been shown to be in the liver and in the blind intestine. In the former it is recognizable by disco'orations often more or less circular or even quite irregular in form, and often presenting present-ing a yellowish appearance. In the blind intestine the disease is accompanied accom-panied by great enlargement and the formation of largo sores. When the disease in the intestine is slight it is doubtful if the affected anima's have diarrhea, which is more or less present pre-sent in other cases. In many of the older poults the droppings will be liquid, and stained orange yellow; this is the most characteristic symptom symp-tom of all. Sometimes there arc blackened blood clots in the droppings, drop-pings, indicating s'ight hemorrhages1. The majority of young poults die after af-ter a day or two of droopiness. Adults Ad-ults may droop longer and p" .... into chronic stages of the disease. Refusal Re-fusal to cat and standing apart constitute con-stitute late symptoms. The disease . is not transmitted through the egg, and while ordinary fowls (hens, guineas, pheasants, etc) 1 rarely die of the disease, they carry and distribute the disease. By re- j moving the turkey eggs three or four days before hatching, wiping them with a cloth moistened with go per cent alcohol, finishing the incubation in a machine keeping the poults for a few weeks on a disinfected boaiM floor, and placing them in- a .location remote from ordinary fowl, the losses loss-es by blackhead disease prior to reaching maturity may be reduced' from a minimum of 80 per cent to 4 from 15 to 20 per cent. This sh6ws that the turkeys must be kept away from ordinary fowl us much as' possib'c, and in view of the tendency of partially wild turkeys to roam and Tcmain at a considcrabk distance from the farm buildings, ;t is possible that the supposed benefit from introducing wild blood is thus partial'y explained, and that it is not due to greater immunity of the wild birds. F-- As the parasites seem to be easily I killed by drying, dry sandy soils 1 wou'd seem to be preferable for turk- 1 ey rearing, and it is clear that turk- cys should be reared away from the house and be kept from all fields where ordinary fowl arc likely to ' forage. Older turkeys apparently resist the disease bettor than very young, but j no breed of turkeys thus far tested is immune to the blackhead disease, for all of them, at a'l ages, so far trie! have died of it. 1 The destructive character, of this j disease and the case with which it may be distributed suggests that great care should be exercised not to carry turkeys from regions where the disease pevails into regions where ir docs not exist. |