190 PROFITS IN POULTRY. 



bird, while others are provided with suckers by which to 

 draw the blood. Where the fowls are in good health, 

 and have free use of the dust bath, they keep the para- 

 sites from excessive increase. In winter there should 

 always be a box of fine earth for dusting kept where 

 no water can reach it. Old nest-boxes should be treated 

 to a bath of scalding lye before they are again used. 



To get rid of fleas, the chicken-house should be 

 thoroughly whitewashed not half done with hot lime- 

 wash. The floor shoultt be well sprinkled with a solution 

 of carbolic acid, and the roosts thoroughly greased with 

 a mixture of one pound of lard, one pint of raw linseed 

 oil, a quarter of a pint of kerosene, and a quarter of a 

 pound of sulphur. 



When kerosene oil is placed on the fowls themselves, 

 it should be used sparingly; properly applied, it is the 

 best known remedy for lice, but to use it recklessly is 

 dangerous. 



Unfortunately for the fowls, it is impossible to de- 

 scribe " the" Hen Louse, for there are so many of them. 

 Here is a portrait, Fig. 80, of one of the easiest to 

 find, as it is one of the largest, being nearly ^ inch 

 long. Unless special care is taken, little chicks, when 

 they are first hatched, are sadly afflicted; and the 

 feathers on $he head are all alive with them. Not only 

 common fowls, but all other domestic birds, including 

 the delicate pets, such as the canary, and the wild birds 

 from the largest to the smallest, are infested by parasites 

 as animals and plants that live upon other animals and 

 plants are called. Vermin is the pest of poultry, and 

 when chicken-houses get thoroughly infested, it is not 

 an easy matter to cleanse them. If the house is washed 



