Inflammation Of The Bowels

Young Canaries, when fed upon egg and bread, and such nutritious food, get sick, and their appearance indicates an attack of this disorder. The skin of the belly is distended, and the feathers come off, and leave the skin bare, and the veins under it are blue and surcharged with blood, and on dissection, the bowels are found inflamed, and black towards the vent. On the first appearance of this disorder withdraw the rich food, and give your birds a little lettuce seed and Canary alone, plenty of green stuff, and put a rusty nail in the water. But in prescribing for the diseases of birds, and other animals too, the old adage holds good, that "An ounce of preventive is worth a pound of cure;" and to avoid this and other disorders, I endeavor to get my young Canaries from their soft and luscious food as soon as possible to their plain seed, on which they are much healthier.

Constipation, Or Costiveness

The good old singing Canaries, and other birds who live upon seeds, are often troubled with this ailment; it may be discovered by the bird jerking down his body when he voids, or tries to, and raising his tail. A bit of bread dipped in milk and a blade of cabbage will cure it. It is well to stick a bit of bread, moistened with milk, in the cages of your seed-birds occasionally, it will prove beneficial to them.

Epilepsy

This disease some birds are subject to; bleeding is prescribed by some, by cutting one or two of the nails of the claws until they bleed. I prefer cold baths. Many years ago I had a pair of Cardinal Grossbeaks both in one cage; one day the female had one of these fits; when I discovered her I found her lying on her back, at the bottom of the cage, pulling her feathers out, and she had succeeded in stripping her lower parts completely bare of feathers; I immediately took her out and plunged her into the water-pail, and after allowing her time to breathe I put her in again. Being determined to test the virtue of this mode of proceeding, I put her into the water a third time, and then put her back into the cage. I kept her, I think, nearly three months after this, her feathers soon came on again, and she sung sweetly,* and never had another fit, at least when with me.

Asthma

If you have a bird attacked with this disorder, which you will know by its making a croaking or wheezing noise when it breathes, take a piece of baker's bread, soak it in water, then squeeze the water out of it, and boil it well in milk. Give them freely of this every day, with plenty of cabbage or lettuce, and if your bird is not a very old one it will soon recover.

Diarrhoea

Put a piece of rusty iron in your water-dish, (and do not change the water oftener than twice a week.) and bread boiled in milk, as for the asthma; boil it well in this case, so as when it is cold it will cut like cheese; give them freely of it, and plenty of vegetables. For young Canaries and other seed birds, mix with the paste some scalded rape seed; this mode of treatment for this disease is generally successful.

Diseases Of The Feet

Thrushes, and other birds, are sometimes troubled with this; it is often occasioned by the feet and legs getting dry and hard, and the scales contracted, and the shedding of them being protracted, causes much pain to the bird, and often lameness. Wash the feet and shanks of the bird, once or twice a day, with some warm milk and water, and rub them with a little lard; when they get soft, remove the scales gently, this treatment will soon effect a cure.

* The female of this species sings.

By getting it caught in the wires, or from some other cause, a bird will sometimes unfortunately break its leg. In this case take the perches out of the cage, and spread a piece of flannel smoothly on the bottom. If you have glasses in your cage, take them out, and stop up the holes, then put the food into very shallow vessels so as the bird can eat and drink without getting up, or rising on its legs. Nature will now do the rest, the bone will soon knit, and the bird get well. By this mode of treatment I have in general been successful in effecting a complete cure.

The claws of a bird that has been kept in a cage for some time will grow long, so as to annoy the bird in leaping from perch to perch in catching round them, and might be the cause of the bird's injuring itself as before mentioned. In this case, take the bird in your left hand, and holding its leg between your fingers, cut the nails off the claws with a pair of sharp scissors; you need not cut too far up, to touch the quick, as it hurts the bird, (but it will not injure it); if you should the first, cut less off the others.

Moulting

Though not, properly speaking, a disease, yet during this operation of nature, all birds are more or less sick, and some suffer severely. And it is rather remarkable, that this is the case even among birds of the same species, some getting through the operation much easier than others. If we look at birds in a state of nature, we will find that at the time of moulting they have their food in the greatest abundance scattered around them in profusion, when they are least capable of making exertions to procure it. The mode of treatment of birds, in a domestic state, is here clearly pointed out. They require plenty of nourishing food, as near natural as we can possibly procure it. Worms, insects, and fruit, to those birds who eat them, and to those who live upon dry seeds, bread dipped in milk, fruit and vegetables: to supply the waste of moisture and strength, occasioned by the growth of an entire new covering for their bodies.

Loss Of Voice

Sometimes it will happen that a bird, after moulting, does not sing. This, I think, proceeds rather from the notes escaping the memory, than any physical defect in the bird. By hanging a bird that has been brought to me in this state near a good singer, and feeding him well two or three days, he has soon found his voice again.