HOW TO DL5TROV RLD MITLS. 107 



When lice once become established in a house in sufficient numbers to cause serious trouble, 

 the most common reason for difficulty in exterminating them is lack of thoroughness in treat" 

 ment. Often the treatment while of the right kind is done by piecemeal, and when repetitions- 

 of treatment are required the intervals between are allowed to be too long. I find that this is- 

 nearly always the case when complaint is made that usual remedies are not effective. I have 

 often had letters from poultrymen who said that they found it impossible to rid the fowls and 

 premises of lice, though the treatment as they described it left nothing to be desired. 



It being out of the question to go back of their reports and ascertain the facts in any case, I 

 several years ago concluded to let some of my own bouses become badly infested with lice, 

 reproducing as nearly as possible the conditions of the typical poultrvman who found the lice 

 too many tor him. 



So one season, beginning in the spring, I systematically neglected or omitted every su:il; 

 operation which might prevent the increase of Itce. By midsummer I had one hou>-e badlv 

 infested with red mites. It is worth noting in connection with the fact that under ordinary 

 good conditions lice rarely become troublesome, that the mites did not appear in numbers that 

 made their presence plain without close investigation, until the conditions became very bad. 

 The droppings had been allowed to lie for months. Even then it was only after a period of 

 nearly two weeks of very hot damp weather that the mites began to be noticeable. Then- 

 within another week the place became literally alive with them. 



At the same time in order to give the body lice a chance to develop I omitted to m:ike 

 provision for the hens to dust themselves. So I had at once a flock of bens badly infested 

 with lice, and their house alive with red mites. The ravages of the insects under such con- 

 ditions began to be discernible almost at once. For the lice I did nothing whatever but pro- 

 vide dusting places as usual Wy spading up here and there in the yards a few square feet of 

 ground. Had the hens been badly infested for a long time this would not have been sufficient. 

 As it was, they made almost constant use of the dust baths for a few days, and soon had the 

 lice reduced to normal numbers. 



The red mites which prey on the fowls at night, and leave them during the day to hide in 

 rough places or crevices about the roosts, are said to remain on the fowls during the day as 

 well as night when very numerous, but I could find none on the hens in these houses by 

 day, though they were in such numbers at the ends of the roosts that they could not begin 

 to find places for concealment by day, and remained in a mass so great that slight movement 

 of the roost would make a great bloody smear of them. 



The first thing done for these was to remove all roosts and nests from the house, taking 

 out also the cleats of wood on which the ends of the roosts rested, which were screwed to the 

 wall. Then I brushed down the walls thoroughly with a broom preliminary to whitewashing. 

 In doing this, quantities of mites were brushed to the floor, and undoubtedly many of them 

 worked back again, but I paid no attention at all to them. 



I began treatment by applying to the mites on roosts and nests, taken out into the sun, 

 various preparations, and carefully noting their action. I found kerosense effective, but did 

 not think after trying chloro-naptholeum in water, applied to the mites and roosts with a 

 brush, that kerosene was as economical. I did not feel like using it as freely as I did the 

 water and C. N. Whitewash also was effective for all mites it reached, though not as quickly 

 as the chloro-naptholeum preparation. I used some of this in quite a weak solution, pour- 

 ing into a pail just enough to color the water up well, and with a brush threw and spattered 

 it over the walls for some distance from the ends of the roosts, taking care to get it into 

 joints and cracks as much as possible. 



In one pen I used nothing but whitewash, putting it on the underside, edges, and ends of 

 the roosts, as well as on the walls of the pen. In the other two pens I gave roosts, supports, 

 and nests a free application of water and chloro-naptholeum, and then whitewashed the walls. 

 Note that: Every part of walls, roosts, and attachments was thoroughly treated at one time 

 with some preparation destructive to mites. 



The fowls roosted in the houses the same as usual that night; the whitewash not being yet 

 quite dry, no special indications of mites were looked for until after the second night. Then 

 enough mites that had escaped treatment had worked their way back to be quite conspicuous. 



