304 THE PRACTICAL POULTRY KEEPER. 



contact with the house, and the sockets, and all fissures and 

 cracks to be painted with kerosene. And besides the 

 regular lime-wash, the inside of the house should be 

 sprayed, or the cracks painted over, with dilute carbolic 

 acid, or even corrosive sublimate solution. Poisons are, 

 however, better avoided. 



Rats may often be kept out by laying small mesh 

 netting under the floor and a foot high all round. A terrier, 

 trained not to hurt the birds, will often keep them away. 

 Pouring gas-tar down every hole that is found is sometimes 

 efficacious; but a more effectual plan is to stop up every hole 

 but one, and to pour down this some bisulphide of carbon. 

 This should, however, never be done at night, and no light 

 should be taken near as long as any smell remains, the 

 vapour being about the most inflammable of any known. 

 It penetrates through their runs and kills them by 

 suffocation. 



Poxes can be to a considerable extent guarded against in 

 several ways, so far as a limited stock is concerned': it is 

 very large establishments which are so helpless. A small 

 roll of netting near each door, or a semicircle in front, 

 generally frightens them away, as they suspect a trap ; so 

 will often a piece of red rag tied to a stick. Any such scares 

 should, however, be changed about or varied every few days, 

 that the animals may not get used to them. Another 

 usually successful way to guard a fowl-house which must be 

 left open is to make the exit right at one end of the side, 

 and to give access to it by a wooden tunnel all along the side, 

 only large enough for the fowls to walk along, and turn at 

 the end. Here, again, the fox suspects a trap, and will 

 rarely enter, especially if the open end be further furnished 

 with a variable scarecrow such as the above. 



