124 AN EGG FARM. 



allowing the hen, meanwhile, water, and a little corn, 

 just a few kernels, placed in dishes by the nest. When 

 removed to the coops, put in each double brood thirty 

 chickens less if it is cold weather, and forty sometimes 

 in summer. 



The large lice that often infest the bodies of sitting 

 hens will leave for the young chicks and gather on their 

 heads, unless care is taken. This trouble must be abso- 

 lutely prevented. The liquid lice-killer, of late inven- 

 tion must be applied freely to the edges of the nest 

 several times during the first fortnight of the sitting 

 term, the wirework over the top and front of the nests 

 being covered, meanwhile, with paper or cloth as closely 

 as may be without stifling the sitters. Or powdered 

 sulphur, if bought at wholesale rates, will prove cheap 

 enough, and is not dangerous to the sitters. No cover- 

 ing of the nests is necessary when this is used, and it 

 can be applied during the third week if desired, or at 

 any other time. Two thorough applications will utterly 

 destroy the enemy, an interval of four days being allowed 

 between. Use two full handfuls each time. No matter 

 how much lies at the bottom of the nest and on the 

 straw and earth at its sides, it will not injure the hen or 

 her newly hatched chicks. Apply it at night to the 

 hen, and then keep her confined until the latter part of 

 the next day, so that the fumes of the sulphur can take 

 full effect. When you begin, disturb the hen slightly 

 so that she will bristle her feathers, and then from a 

 dredge box dust the sulphur down to every portion of 

 her skin, from head to foot, not omitting a liberal dose 

 upon all the eggs, so that the under parts of her body 

 may get full benefit. 



