112 MRS. BASLEY'S WESTERN POULTRY BOOK 



on green food. I know that is hard to get at that time, but I had 

 lawn clippings, vegetables and melons, or even alfalfa hay cut in 

 the clover cutter and soaked for some hours in water, and I dis- 

 pensed with all the grain and meat- I kept them on this green food 

 for about three weeks until their avoirdupois was considerably 

 lower and most of them had stopped laying for a week. 



Dipping Fowls. 



Meanwhile during their fast I saw that they were entirely clean 

 from lice, either by keeping them well dusted with insect powder 

 or by giving them a good, warm bath in warm soap suds, rinsing 

 them in a two per cent solution of carbolic acid or water and creolin 

 or the kerosene emulsion. I have tried all of these with good 

 success. 



This washing seems to loosen the feathers and will clean the 

 fowls of lice. If lice are left on the fowls at moulting time they eat 

 little holes in the tender sprouting feathers and these little holes in 

 the web of the feather will certainly bring a "cut" from the judge 

 in the show room, and for the whole year will tell the tale of care- 

 less handling by the owners. In washing or dipping fowls for lice 

 there are two things to be remembered : First, do it on a bright, 

 warm, sunny morning, so the fowls will have time to get thor- 

 oughly dry before sundown, and, secondly, see that every feather 

 is thoroughly soaked. If you skip a feather a louse will take refuge 

 on it and commence to breed again as soon as the hen is dry. If 

 there are any lice the disinfectant in the bath will kill them and 

 the warm suds also loosens the nits of the head lice. Those lice lay 

 two silvery, white nits at the shaft of the feather and it is difficult 

 to get them off. 



Mature hens which are fed sparingly for about two weeks and 

 then receive a rich nitrogenous ration, moult more rapidly and with 

 more uniformity and enter the cold weather of winter in better con- 

 dition than the fowls fed continuously during the moulting period 

 on an egg-producing ration. 



What to Feed 



It is largely a question of what not to feed as well as how little 

 to give the birds you wish to moult early. There is one line of 

 foods that you may feed in unlimited quantities, and that is the 

 green vegetable, the waste, small beets and thinnings of the garden 

 rows can be supplied every day. My own plan in the days when 

 I had small ungrassed yards, was to give full quantities of lawn 

 clippings, putting them into the yards an hour before dark. This 

 gave the birds time to fill up at night and yet the uneaten clippings 

 would be still fresh in the early morning. If you have had no 

 experience in the use of lawn grass you will be surprised to see 

 how much a few hens will eat. If your hens have very large yards, 

 with fruit trees to supply some falling apples or pears, the birds 

 will do very well without other food. We are inclined to overfeed 

 our birds with grain in the warm weather and, unless the food is 



