My family is from County Antrim, Ladyhill, Ireland. I'm third generation Irish. My husband was born in Dublin, Ireland(Yeah he has a accent). So we have a strong tie to our homeland. In a old magazine from Ireland, I found this passage from a farm in South Antrim. I thought you all would like it..
In the 1920's on the family farm, my mother was always fretting about the chickens suffering from the gape. When they were some weeks old, the little victims used to collapse on their hunkers, gasping for air, or gaping. Mum's remedy was to go to the stable and fetch a few horse hairs from the bundle, which always resposed on a shelf behind the stalls. Taking one of these hairs, she used to deftly tie a noose on one end to it.
Then she picked up one of the gapers, held it's bill open with the forefinger of her left hand, and carefully inserted the loop end of the hair into the birds wind pipe. As she inserted it, she rotated it gently, then withdrew it slowly, bringing with it a catch of tiny, tiny, wriggling, red worms. Theses were discarded, and the operation was repeated, until the loop emerged as clean as it went in! The operating instrument was then discarded and a fresh made duplicate was used to repeat the treatment with every one of the infected birds. She was a long experienced poultry breeder, so I presume the treatment worked, otherwise, she would hot have bothered to practise it.
Yeah,,,the good ole days,,,,so glad we have meds to just dump in the waterers,,,,,,
In the 1920's on the family farm, my mother was always fretting about the chickens suffering from the gape. When they were some weeks old, the little victims used to collapse on their hunkers, gasping for air, or gaping. Mum's remedy was to go to the stable and fetch a few horse hairs from the bundle, which always resposed on a shelf behind the stalls. Taking one of these hairs, she used to deftly tie a noose on one end to it.
Then she picked up one of the gapers, held it's bill open with the forefinger of her left hand, and carefully inserted the loop end of the hair into the birds wind pipe. As she inserted it, she rotated it gently, then withdrew it slowly, bringing with it a catch of tiny, tiny, wriggling, red worms. Theses were discarded, and the operation was repeated, until the loop emerged as clean as it went in! The operating instrument was then discarded and a fresh made duplicate was used to repeat the treatment with every one of the infected birds. She was a long experienced poultry breeder, so I presume the treatment worked, otherwise, she would hot have bothered to practise it.
Yeah,,,the good ole days,,,,so glad we have meds to just dump in the waterers,,,,,,