136 FIE SI LESSONS IN POULTRY KEEPING. 



Making Houses Ready. 



While it is better to have houses in first class shape, clean, and the floor (if of earth) 

 renewed, when the pullets are put into them, it is much better to put the pullets in the houses, 

 and fix up afterwards than to keep them out until the houses are ready, especially if (as is 

 quite generally the case) the pullets are by this lime overcrowded in the summer quarters. 

 The ideal way, as has been said, is to have everything ready at its proper time, but this is so 

 difficult to accomplish that many times we have to take the course that seems to have the least 

 disadvantages. 



When detached houses are used it is much easier to clean up while the house is in use than 

 when houses are on the continuous plan, but even in that case with a little ingenuity in shifting 

 the fowls from pen to pen as cleaning progresses, the fowls being driven and not handled at all, 

 it is possible to do the work almost as expeditiously as if the houses were empty. 



With me the cleaning process consists in removing all of the earth floor that shows any 

 mixture of droppings, brushing down walls and underside of roof with a broom, filling the 

 floor with new earth, and making whatever repairs are necessary. Sometimes the interior is 

 whitewashed, though that seems to me generally not to be necessary for cleanliness, but rather 

 advisable because it makes the place look better, and makes the light better on dark days. 

 These advantages make whitewashing well worth doing if time can be found for the work, 

 but if something has to be left undone, let it be the whitewashing rather than the renewal of 

 the floor, repairs, or alterations that will make the winter's work easier. 



Look Out for Mites. 



When cleaning up the house look out for red mites. They are most likely to be found on the 

 undersides of the .roosts, and about the supports on which the roosts rest, and about the nests. 

 If they are present, indications will be plain, even before the mites themselves are seen, in the 

 abundance of greyish white specks about their harboring places. If these specks, resembling 

 fly specks, are noticed on walls or fixtures, you may be sure the mites are there. In that event, 

 whether the house is to be whitewashed or not, give all the places where traces of mites are 

 found a thorough swabbing, spraying, or drenching with water containing an insecticide that 

 will kill them. I use Chloro-Xaptholeum, about a half teacupful to a three gallon pail of 

 water. Some use Sulpho-Napthol, some napthalene flakes dissolved in kerosene, some straight 

 kerosene, some one of the numerous other liquid insecticides and disinfectants on the market. 

 Whitewash alone will kill all the mites it reaches if a bit thick, but if thin enough to go into the 

 cracks and crevices is not as effective as the other things mentioned. Whatever application is 

 used, if the mites were bad go over the infested places again after an interval of three or four 

 days, and again after another like interval, if, on examination, any mites are found. Two, or 

 at most, three treatments at this season should settle the mite question until the return of warm 

 weather next summer. 



Renovating the Yards. 



The yards being, in this latitude, little used in winter, it is not as necessary to clean them up 

 at this time as it is to clean the houses, but if opportunity can be found now to turn over soil 

 that would require turning over in the spring anyway, it is worth while to do it. The contam- 

 inated soil is thus turned under, and if there should happen to be much open weather in the 

 winter the fowls have cleaner ground to run over. 



If it is desired to grass a yard, now is a better time to prepare it than in the spring. Plough 

 or spade and smooth the surface. Then just before it freezes up sow the seed. Keep the fowls 

 off the land through the winter and until after the grass is well established in the spring. In 

 this way you will get a better start of grass, and have the use of the land much sooner than if 

 the seed is sown in the spring. 



Laying in Supplies for Winter. 



Dust. If, as I think by far the best way, the floor of the house is used as a dust bath, no 

 special provision for material for the dust bath need be made; but if floors are of wood or 

 cement, and dust has to be supplied specially, a good supply should be stored before the ground 

 freezes. 



