the hatching season is over. For egg farming, it hardly pays to keep 

 a cock bird over the second year. One-year-old cockerels with two- 

 year-old hens is ideal, and they may be kept pretty free from lice 

 this first year. 



There are many .ways of getting rid of body lice on hens. Lice 

 powders are very common, but a slow process and not thorough. To 

 take one hen at a time and dust her with lice powder is a slow process 

 for an egg farmer that has several thousand hens. With a few hens, 

 lice powder can be sifted through the feathers, and if repeated about 

 three times at intervals of six days the lice may be gotten rid of. The 

 young lice mature and begin to breed in about six days. 



The method of dipping the hens in a tub of sheep dip is crude and 

 hard on laying hens. No successful egg farmer will attempt this 

 method. 



If clean sand is kept on the floor of the poultry house and if this 

 sand is lightly sprayed at times of spraying the walls, the hens will 

 wallow in this sprayed sand and will be kept as free from vermin as 

 is possible. 



Lice powders can also be sprinkled in their dusting places. If clean 

 sand floors are accessible to second year hens they may be as free from 

 lice as the first year hens. Painting the perches in the evening with 

 crude carbolic acid will disconcert the lice also. 



Crude carbolic acid on the perches occasionally is, perhaps, the 

 speediest way to keep down the body lice on the hens as well as 

 the mites. 



Every obstacle in the way of complete comfort for the hen must be 

 removed if the maximum results are to be obtained. 



Fleas in Poultry Houses 



The hen flea is another pest that worries the flock if allowed to get 

 started. They inhabit the nest boxes particularly, and the litter on the 

 floor. These are best controlled by spraying the nest boxes thoroughly 

 with the above spray and filling with clean straw. 



Clean, sharp sand should be used on the floors, and this can be 

 sprayed lightly when the walls are sprayed, and thus the fleas have no 

 show whatever. The oil on the floor tends to keep the dust down also, 

 which is a necessary duty. 



Bacteria Which Causes Canker, Roup, and Chicken Pox 



With my system of small eight foot square pens it is possible to 

 eliminate all canker, roup and chicken pox and worms. These are the 

 four dread diseases of poultry, and any system that will control them 

 is a boon to poultrymen. Canker is a cheesy substance that forms in 

 cakes on the mouth and tongue and too often over the opening or in 

 the opening of the windpipe, when it proves fatal by choking the fowl 

 to death. The bacteria that causes canker breeds in moist, damp, 

 filthy places, especially around watering places. It is prevalent in all 

 outside runs, especially in rainy weather. This is w^hy canker is 

 prevalent at the rainy periods. We can eliminate canker by cutting 

 out the open runs. 



Chicken pox comes also from damp, filthy places and when the rain 

 falls on yards and the hens drink from the filthy pools, chicken pox is 



86 



