674 EXPERIMENTAL FARMS 



4 GEORGE V., A. 1914 



fully fed and cared for from the time of hatching- until they reach the saleable age 

 of two and one-half, three, or four months. The practice, too common among farmers, 

 of allowing their chickens to ' pick up their own living ' cannot be too strongly 

 condemned. True, there is on many farms feed wasted that could with profit be 

 converted into eg'gs and flesh and, in some cases, all that growing chicks require is 

 t< be allowed this feed that would otherwise be lost, but care should be taken that, 

 if plenty of food is not available, it is provided if best results are looked for. It is 

 the production of the highest quality that should be aimed at, and the best quality 

 cannot be produced but by the greatest care and attention. As a result, the highest 

 quality in poultry will always command a high price. There is, unfortunately, always 

 plenty of the second and third grades to suit those who prefer such to the higher 

 quality. The chicken that reaches four poinds in three months is a very different 

 jirticle to the ' scraggy, lean and bony specimen ' that has been allowed ' to pick up 

 its own living.' 



And in eggs, equal care and attention are necessary. A good market now pre- 

 vails, all the year round, for strictly new-laid, non-fertilized eggs, laid by well and 

 cleanly fed and lice-free hens. Fowls should be free from lice both day and night. 

 When the expression ' both day and night ' is used, it means that the poultry house 

 should be entirely free from red mites, which hide away in the cracks and crevices 

 of the house during the day and come out in countless thousands at night to suck 

 the life blood of the hens. 



A dust bath, into which a little dry sulphur or tobacco dust has been mixed, will 

 usually keep healthy hens free of body lice, but nothing but absolute cleanliness, with 

 an occasional spray, will keep the red mites out. When once allowed to get into a 

 hen house, their eradication is extremely difficult, and most thorough means have to 

 be employed. 



HOW TO CLEAN AND DISINFECT A POULTRY HOUSE. 



The best description of how to clean poultry houses that we have seen is given 

 by Dr. Raymond Pearl, University of Maine, in ' Poultry Diseases and their Treat- 

 ment;' we should add to this, however, that where a hose is not available a good stiff 

 broom might take its place. 



Cleanliness. — The thing of paramount importance in the hygienic housing of 

 poultry is cleanliness. By this is meant not merely plain ordinary cleaning up, in 

 the housewife sense, but also bacteriological cleaning up; that is, disinfection. All 

 buildings or structures of whatever kind in which poultry are housed during any 

 part of their lives should be subjected to a most thorough and searching cleaning 

 and disinfecting at least once every year. This cleaning-up should, naturally, come 

 for each different structure (i.e., laying, colony or brooder house, individual brooder, 

 incubator, etc.) at a time which just precedes the putting of new stock into this 

 structure. 



Not every poultryman, of experience even, knows how really to clean-up a 

 poultry house. The first thing to do is to remove all the litter and loose dirt which 

 can be shovelled out. Then give the house — floor, walls and ceiling — a thorough 

 sweeping and shovel out the accumulate:! debris. Then play a garden hose, with the 

 maximum water pressure which can be obtained, upon floor, roosting boards, walls 

 and ceiling, until all the dirt which washes down easily is disposed of. Then take a 

 heavy hoe or roost board scraper and proceed to scrape the floor and roosting boards 

 clean of the trampled and caked droppings and dirt. Then shovel out what has been 

 accumulated and get the hose into action once more and wash the whole place down 

 again thoroughly ar*d follow this with another scraping. With a stiff-bristled bi 

 thoroughly scrub walls, floors, nest boxes, roost boards, etc. Then, after another 



