POULTRY FOR PROFIT 143 



4. Clean Water. 



5. Clean Yards and Clean Range. 



6. Clean Incubators and Brooders. 



7. Clean Birds, Outside and Inside. 



The Clean House 



A clean poultry house will have (1) a clean floor, 

 (2) clean walls and nests, (3) movable roosts and 

 fixtures. 



A Clean Floor 



The cleanest floor is a cement floor. Swept daily 

 and washed clean with the hose once a week, it gives 

 no chance for mites to breed. When a cement floor 

 cannot be had, a board floor is next best. It has 

 cracks, to be sure, where mites may hide, but they 

 will not if it is kept clean. A dirt floor is the least 

 sanitary, and only by removing the droppings every 

 day or two can it be kept clean. 



Objection is sometimes made to cement floors on 

 the ground that the fowls' toe nails are broken or 

 worn by scratching on them, but the use of a little 

 dirt or sand, with six or eight inches of straw above 

 should save the fowls' feet. 



Movable Fixtures 



Mites always breed under something. No use look- 

 ing for them anywhere else in the day time. At night 

 you will find them on the hens. The sanitary house 

 or coop must have no place that cannot be reached 

 and cleansed or disinfected. Under the ends of the 

 roosts, under the droppings on the floor or the drop- 

 pings-board, under the litter in the nests, in every 

 crack and crevice, these pests may be found in a 

 mite-infested house; hence the extreme importance 



