184 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I907. 



THE TOO FREE USE OF DRIED SUCCULENT FOOD. 



The Station usually uses oat straw for bedding for lay- 

 ing hens. In April the supply of straw was short, and 

 oat hay was substituted for it. The oat hay was made the 

 previous summer, by cutting the oats when they were headed 

 out, but before they commenced filling. It was nicely cured, 

 and green in color. When first bedded with it the hens ate 

 freely of the finer parts, and the morning following, the plat- 

 forms under the roosts were flooded with their thin, liquid-like 

 voidings. This continued, somewhat lessened, during the next 



2 days, although the bedding was removed as soon as that was 

 thought to be the cause of the trouble. They ate little food for 



3 or 4 days and it was 8 or 9 days before they were consuming 

 their usual amounts. The egg yields were about 60 per cent 

 of the number of birds, just before the trouble began, but they 

 were reduced to less than 10 per cent, and it was about 20 days 

 before the birds regained their former productions. 



In 2 pens the bedding was oat straw as usual, and there was 

 no disturbance in those pens. It is not thought that the oat 

 hay would have caused irregularities had it been fed sparingly. 

 Long ago we learned that we must not feed mangels too freely, 

 because of their laxative tendencies, but there was no thought 

 that the dry hay, although made from young plants, was com- 

 parable with the crisp, juicy mangels. 



ATTEMPT AT LICE EXTERMINATION. 



There are no lice at all on the chickens, and they are not 

 wanted on the fowls, but so far, it has been impracticable 

 to keep clear entirely of them. The roost platforms are well 

 cleaned every morning of the year, and the straw bedding is 

 cleaned out and renewed every 2 weeks, except in summer when 

 the birds are much in the yards, and then it remains 3 weeks 

 before renewal. Kerosene and crude petroleum are used freely 

 and frequently, on the roosts and adjacent woodwork, dust 

 baths are provided, and the birds are occasionally dusted with 

 a commercial lice killing powder, evidently composed chiefly 

 of tobacco snuff. This powder is very destructive to lice life, 

 but it is a good deal of a task to treat, individually, several 

 thousand hens. 



