WITH 4200 HENS 169 



Parasites 



In this respect the poultryman may have four things 

 to contend with : Mites, Lice, Scaly Leg and Worms. 



Mites are the chicken house bedbug and they are as 

 much a disgrace to the poultryman as the bedbug is to 

 the housewife. The mites live and breed in the house. 

 They attack their host on the roost at night and suck the 

 blood. If you are as careful and regular in spraying as 

 you should be you will have none of them. A common 

 form of entry for them is to put a new roost or a piece of 

 new lumber in the house without first spraying it. Should 

 they gain entry on you in this manner your safest course 

 is to spray their place of abode every day until you get 

 rid of them. 



The family tree of the louse family is a widespreading 

 oak. None should concern you excepting the body louse 

 which lives on the bird. As our chicks are all incubator 

 hatched we have none to contend with at the start. Our 

 observation is that lice are present on mature fowls in 

 almost every large flock. The pullets usually stay free 

 of them until they are nine or ten months old. We do 

 not concern ourselves with them. We see to it that the 

 birds have loose moist soil to dust and wallow in all the 

 time and that is as far as we go. We have never found 

 lice in sufficient numbers to be dangerous excepting on 

 birds out of condition that are not removed promptly, and 

 on male birds. The males are likely to be negligent in 

 dusting. When a sick bird is removed if it is lousy it is 

 dusted with "Devil's Dust" to give it a chance to regain 

 its normal habits; and the male birds are given a hand- 

 dusting twice a year. Some birds will keep themselves 



