Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Internet resources for organic health care available from the UK and India. My compendium re-
flects what organic farmers face when treating health problems with alternative medicine; they
must piece together information, experiment, and then share their experience with other farm-
ers. The following are ailments a producer might run into in a free-range flock of any type of
poultry. The diagnostic information is from Damerow, and the remedy information is from my
organic-remedies compendium.
Infectious Coryza
Also called
—cold, contagious catarrh, coryza, hemophilus infection, infectious catarrh, IC,
roup.
Incidence
—common.
System/organ affected
—respiratory.
Agent
—
Haemophilus paragallinarum
bacteria.
Incubation period
—one to three days.
Progression
—acute and spreads rapidly, or chronic and spreads slowly.
Symptoms
—in chicks at least four weeks old: depression, nasal discharge, facial swelling,
one or both eyes closed, death; in growing and mature birds: watery eyes with eyelids stuck to-
gether, reddish foul-smelling discharge from nose, drop in feed and water consumption, drop in
egg production, swollen face, eyes, and sinuses; sometimes diarrhea, rales, or wheezing.
Percentage affected
—high.
Mortality
—low, except in turkeys.
Transmission
—contagious; contact with infected carrier birds and their nasal or respirat-
ory discharges in dust, drinking water, or feed.
Prevention
—avoid combining birds from different flocks and of different age groups; re-
move infected birds; disinfect and leave housing vacant for three weeks before bringing in new
birds.
Alternative treatments
—spray a mist of camphor over birds at night or place camphor oil
in nostrils (do not use if treating with homeopathy); give inhalations of eucalyptus oil in boiling
water in house at night; fast for one day then give laxative diet of cod-liver oil, chopped onions,
and greens; give strong sage or eyebright tea; feed plenty of garlic and bran with molasses.
Homeopathic treatments
—Do not use in combination with camphor treatments; homeo-
pathic remedies for coryza are very symptom specific; the most commonly use remedies in-
clude Allium Cepa, Aresenicum Alb and Euphrashia for watery discharges; Mercurius Vivus,
