Mites and Lice on Poultry. 



Chickens may carry a few mites (sometimes a hundred or more) 

 in then- featiiers durmg the day followmg a night spent in infested 

 quarters, but most of these leave the host during the followmg night. 

 In some cases mites may remain on chickens during three days and 

 nights, but nearly all become engorged and leave them by the third 

 night. 



Within 12 to 48 hours after receiving a meal of blood the mature 

 female deposits from three to seven pearly white and elliptical eggs 

 laid singly in the cracks in which the adults are hiding. The opera- 

 tion of feedmg and depos- 

 itmg is repeated as many 

 as eight times, and from 

 25 to 35 eggs in all are 

 deposited. 



In summer the eggs 

 hatch m about two days, 

 and one to two days later, 

 without feeding, the larvae 

 shed their skins and be- 

 come nymphs (see fig. 1). 

 With a very short rest 

 these light-colored nymphs 

 engorge with blood, secrete 

 themselves, and molt their 

 skins the second time 30 to 

 48 hours after having fed. 

 These mites of the second 

 njnnaphal stage soon en- 

 gorge again, shedding their 

 skins one to two days later 

 and becoming adults. 

 The grayish-colored unfed 

 adult is shown in figure 2, and the engorged female, dark red in color 

 and quite plump, in figure 3. 



Thus the chicken mite reproduces very rapidly, the complete 

 life cycle from egg to adult requiring not more than seven days. 



The weather is never too hot for this mite to thrive, and develop- 

 ment is most rapid in midsummer. In the Southern States the mites 

 are not entirely dormant during the winter, but feed and develop 

 when the temperature is not low. This is also true in the North in 

 chicken houses that are heated. Where some development takes 

 place throughout the year, and where a complete generation of mites 

 is developed in a week's time, hordes of mites will be present in a 

 poultry house within a comparatively short time if something is not 

 done to destroy them. 



Fig. 3.— Female chicken mite after feeding. Greatly 

 enlarged. (Original.) 



