14 Diseases of Poultry 



flexibility. Furthermore it gets around the troubles in- 

 volved in the contamination of the ground by the long- 

 continued keeping of poultry on the same small area. In 

 general, local conditions and circumstances must decide in 

 each individual case which system of housing shall be 

 adopted. 



B. Cleanliness. — The thing of paramount importance 

 in the hygienic housing of poultry is cleanliness. By this 

 is meant not merely plain, ordinary cleaning up, in the house- 

 wife sense, but also bacteriological cleaning up; that is, 

 disinfection. All buildings or structures of whatever kind 

 in which poultry are housed during any part of their lives 

 should be subjected to a most thorough and searching clean- 

 ing and disinfection at least once every year. This cleaning 

 up should naturally come for each different structure {i.e., 

 laying, colony or brooder house, individual brooder, incuba- 

 tor, etc.) at a time which just precedes the putting of new 

 stock into this structure. 



How to clean a ^poultry house. — Not every poultryman of 

 experience even, knows how really to clean a poultry house. 

 The first thing to do is to remove all the litter and loose dirt 

 which can be shoveled out. Then give the house — floor, 

 walls and ceiling — a thorough sweeping and shovel out 

 the accumulated debris. Then play a garden hose, with 

 the maximum water pressure which can be obtained, upon 

 floor, roosting boards, walls and ceiling, until all the dirt 

 which washes down easily is disposed of. Then take a 

 heavy hoe or roost board scraper and proceed to scrape the 

 floor and roosting boards, clean of the trampled and caked 

 manure and dirt. Then shovel out what has been accumu- 

 lated and get the hose into action oncfe more and wash the 

 whole place down again thoroughly and follow this with 

 another scraping. With a stiff bristled broom thoroughly 

 scrub walls, floors, nest boxes, roost boards, etc. Then 



