SB 

 818 



C578 

 ENT 



Circular No. 92. lasneA September 25, 1907. 



United States Department of Agriculture, 



BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY. 

 L. O. HOV/ARD, Entomologist and Chief of Bureau. 



MITES AND LICE ON POULTRY. 



By Nathan Banks, Asi'ii.stant Entomoloylst. 



Everyone has seen hens squatting in a hole of dust, vigorously 

 scratching, fluttering their wings and lifting their feathers in an 

 effort to get the dust to the body. This is evidence that the hens are 

 infested with mites or lice, and they are using the means most 

 available to get rid of their tormentors. 



Ordinaril}^ the fowls, by this process, are able to keep the parasites 

 in check, and although there is, of course, some loss in flesh and eggs 

 there is no serious damage. But in the case of setting hens the mites 

 and lice increase to an enormous extent, so that the young chick issu- 

 ing from the egg is at the mercy of hordes of hungry parasites. 

 Some claim that a single individual of these voracious parasites, 

 attacking the throat of a young chick, maj^ cause death. Various 

 troubles are attributed by expert poultry growers to the presence of 

 mites and lice, including bowel disease in summer, drowsiness, refusal 

 to eat, gradual wasting awa}^, loss of feathers, etc. Poultry are fre- 

 quently supposed to be suffering from some disease when the real 

 cause of their ill health is an excessive abundance of lice or mites. 



MITES. 

 THE CHICKEN MITE. 



The mite most conmionly found on poultry throughout the United 

 States, and the one called the " chicken mite," is scientifically knoAvn 

 as Dermanyssus galliiue Redi. (See fig. 1.) It has long been knoAvn 

 to naturalists, and occurs on fowls in Europe and other parts of the 

 world. 



DKSCRIPTION AND HABITS. 



It is an elliptical, somewhat flattened mite, nearly- one-twentieth 

 of an inch long, and plainly visible to the naked eye. Often it is of 

 8543— No. 92—07 



