5k 



manure on either side of the walkway. Houses were tilled by pulling 

 the tiller down one walkway and up the other. The process was reversed 

 each time a house was tilled in order to more thoroughly stir the 

 manure. This became the standard procedure in all tilling trials, even 

 when houses were tilled less frequently than once a day. Figure 2 

 shows the tiller in operation. Since the dimensions of poultry houses 

 vary from farm to farm, tillers must be custom-made for each farm. 

 Description of the Tilling Site 



Tilling trials were accomplished on a north Florida poultry farm 

 near Starke, Bradford County. Prior to construction of the farm, 

 earth was removed so that the foundations of the poultry houses were 

 0.9 m lower than the level of the ground immediately surrounding the 

 farm. This complicated drainage problems, especially during periods 

 of wet weather. The farm consisted of four California-style flat-deck 

 houses (Figure 5) 90 m in length containing 5000 chickens each, and 

 one double-wide stair-step house containing 1 5000 chickens. All birds 

 were housed three to a cage. Only the California-style houses were 

 used in the pest management studies. The layout of the farm and the 



designation of the houses are shown in Figure 3. The watering system 



TM 



consisted of one Hart cup per every two cages. This system worked 



well when properly maintained and cups were routinely cleaned. Water 

 and feed were free choice. 

 Monitoring Larval Fly Populations 



Techniques developed for field evaluations of larval fly popula- 

 tions included the use of pupal traps. Cylinders 31 cm tall by 10 cm 

 in diameter made of 1-cm mesh hardware cloth were filled with moistened 

 wood chips and inserted into the chicken manure pack in poultry houses. 



