HEALTH AND DISEASE OF POULTRY 559 



tion from the fire and stir into it at once, while hot, two gallons of 

 kerosene. This will make a thick creamy emulsion which is made 

 ready for use by diluting with ten volumes of soft water and stirring 

 well. It can be utilized as a spray, dip or wash. It is necessary to 

 use soft water, for hard water decomposes the soap and destroys its 

 emulsifying power. 



Make up as much of the stock emulsion as it is thought will be 

 needed. This can be kept in a suitable vessel and a portion taken 

 out and diluted as needed. If the bucket or holder attached to the 

 spray pump holds five gallons, one-half gallon of the stock emulsion 

 should be taken and put into the bucket or holder and four and one- 

 half gallons of soft water added and the whole well stirred. It is then 

 ready to be sprayed on the places occupied by the mites. These three 

 sprayings done in one day and in rapid succession will destroy nearly 

 all of the mites, but, as my researches have shown, many eggs are left 

 in places untouched by the spray. If mites are seen crawling about 

 the building the next day, it should be sprayed again. One might 

 ordinarily suppose that he had now exterminated the mites. But 

 such is not the case, for, in about three days, a crop of young mites 

 will be found hatched from the eggs which escaped the first spray- 

 ing. If these would be allowed to go undisturbed, it would not be 

 long until the building would be as badly infested as at the begin- 

 ning. Therefore the spraying should be repeated once every three or 

 four days, spraying two or three times on each occasion, for about 

 two weeks. The spray should be applied to every part of the build- 

 ing that is likely to contain the mites. In a two-story building they 

 will crawl up the post and find lodgement upon the second floor even 

 if chickens do not go there. In one case a colony of mites was found 

 on the outside of a small door in the second story of the stable in 

 which chickens are kept and which was badly infested with mites. 

 If such a lodging-place is overlooked, the mites will not be exter- 

 minated. The procedure just described will with very little doubt 

 be effective in ridding a place of mites, but it is advised that a con- 

 stant watch be kept and the spraying repeated when mites are seen at 

 any subsequent time. It is not necessary nor advisable to exclude the 

 chickens from their regular coop while the process of extermination 

 is going on except while the spraying is in progress. If the chickens 

 are deprived of their regular quarters, they will be compelled to se- 

 lect temporary quarters which will soon be as badly infested with 

 mites as the old through multiplication of the mites which are car- 

 ried upon the bodies of the fowls. If the chickens are not required to 

 make a new roosting-place, the mites which are carried out by them 

 will either drop off upon the ground and perish or will crawl off into 

 the crevices about the roost and be killed by subsequent sprayings. 

 Extermination of the mites may be hastened by dusting the fowls 

 with pyrethrum powder after they have gone to roost on the evening 

 before the first spraying. The powder will drive the mites from the 

 birds, and, as a result, but very few will be carried out the next day 

 upon their bodies. (la. B. 69.) 



