LICE AND MITES ON POULTRY 



377 



Biting Lice on Poultry 



Several different species of biting lice affect poultry, including the 

 genera Menopo7i, Lipeurus, and others. They var}^ in particular 

 characteristics, but all are alike in the fact that they do not suck the 

 blood of their host, but cause injury 

 by eating the surface of the skin and 

 the finer parts of the feathers, and 

 by the tiny pricks of their sharp 

 claws as they move about over their 

 host. On young chicks their irrita- 

 tion may readily prove fatal. 



The eggs or " nits " are laid on 

 the feathers, and in warm weather 

 hatch in ten days. Both young and 

 adults are apt to be especially active 

 at night, crawling over the perches 

 and moving from one fowl to 

 another. 



Treatment must include both the poultry house and the fowls in 

 order to be entirely effective. The latter may be dusted with a mix- 

 ture of 10 pounds of sulphur to | bushel of air-slaked lime. The 

 same material may be used in the house, taking care to get it into all 

 cracks, and mixing it with the dust bath. A more effective measure 

 for the house is spraying with lime-sulphur solution or 10 per cent 

 kerosene emulsion. Treatment of the fowls should be repeated at 

 the end of a week or ten days. 



Fig. 604. — A Chicken Louse, Li- 

 -peurus variabilis. Enlarged and 

 natural size. Original. 



The Chicken Mite {Dermanyssus gallince Redi.) 



Several species of mites attack poultry, but the commonest is the 

 one here described. It is a minute, eight-legged creature, one twentieth 

 of an inch long, normally grayish in color but appearing red when filled 

 with blood. It has sucking mouth parts. 



Eggs are laid in droppings or in places where dirt has accumulated, 

 and the j^oung feed at first on such substances. Later they crawl on 



