No. 5. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 225 



incubator, and poults and chicks, pull for the fluff to avoid being 

 trampled, and there they get the big dose of bugs. 



Head lice are worst, as they suck blood. The others eat skin, 

 scruff and feather material, get on the nerves and rob fowl of sleep. 

 Fowls fight lice with dust, this entering their breathing pores and 

 smothering them, but some birds are negligent about their dust 

 bath. Gobblers and roosters are too proud to get down in the dust, 

 and for obvious reasons have more bugs than the hens. Turkeys have 

 less lice than chickens, but sitters, being at a disadvantage, should 

 always be dusted with a louse-killer; tender, helpless poults and 

 chicks as well. Mother turkey should be dusted before you give her 

 the eggs, ten days later, and the first day of the fourth week. This 

 ought to catch all the old and new lice and bring her and the poults 

 off clean of vermin. A very cheap, sure killer is made as follows: 



Five pounds plaster paris. 



One pint gasoline. 



One-half pint crude carbolic acid. 



Mix liquids, stir thoroughly into the plaster, screen over news- 

 paper, let stand two hours and can for use. This is best for adult 

 fowl; should be worked down to the skin, and the hen should be 

 kept from the nest a few moments, as excitement and smell of pow- 

 der may make her void. Not much powder is necessary and it will 

 be found a number one disinfectant. Persian powder is best for 

 poults and chicks. It is harmless, and if pure and fresh, knocks lice, 

 fleas and many other insects dead. Turkey raisers should avoid 

 grease, asi it is apt to kill poults as well as lice. 



GAPES 



The gape-worm gets many poults and thousands of chicks each 

 season. And old theory declares the gape-worm is hatched by the 

 earth-worm. We leave this wiggler theory for our Government high- 

 brow microbe hunters to wrangle over. We know that ground pois- 

 oned with chicken manure and soaked up with rain is a sure gape- 

 worm hotbed. So to prevent gapes, simply keep chickens and turkeys 

 on clean soil. Gape-worm remedies that are fed are gold bricks. The 

 worm is not in the digestive tract, but in the windpipe, and what kills 

 it must be breathed. The quickest and surest way to kill gapes is 

 simply to get a small box and partition it to hold a brick on one 

 side and a bunch of poults on the other. Have a lid with glass over 

 the birds, so you may observe their actions during the process. Heat 

 your brick; pour on it some carbolic acid, and when the poults have 

 breathed enough of the vapor, taken them out, and watch them spit 

 up the worms. This cure is sure. 



TAPEWORM 



The turkey is in particular subject to tape-worm, and these often 

 kill birds almost ready for market. There are six now known species 

 that affect poultry, the intestines being their particular feeding and 

 breeding ground. 



A tape-worm eggs does not hatch in the fowl. The eggs are dropped 

 in excrement and then taken up by slugs, snails, worms and crust- 



15_5_1914 



