Abstract
THE Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries issues a warning against the possibility of introducing the disease known as bacillary white diarrhœa into flocks by the purchase of infected chicks from hatcheries. Serious losses may be caused by such agency, the more to be regretted as a little preliminary precaution might have avoided the introduction of the disease altogether. It is conveyed to the chicks by infected hens through their eggs, so that it is of the utmost importance that the breeding stock should be free from the disease. Now, hens which are carriers of the disease may be recognised as such by the agglutination test, and eliminated from the breeding stock; so that a purchaser of eggs for hatching or day-old chicks should insist that the stock from which his supplies are obtained has been declared free of reacting birds. A number of county authorities for agricultural education now accredit poultry-breeding farms where the quality of the breeding stock reaches an approved standard, and where birds have been subjected to the agglutination test according to regulations laid down by the scheme.
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A Serious Poultry Disease. Nature 130, 505 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130505c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130505c0