1656 
RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
/ 
October 23, 1020 
The Henyard 
Saving Henhouse Lumber 
I have noticed a recent inquiry as to 
how to save expense in building hen¬ 
houses. About eight years ago I built 
one with walls of cement mortar, two 
inches thick, and it is today apparently 
good for 100 years more. I set up on 
4 in 
Lath 
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Sectional View of Wall 
sills wall frames of 2x4 hemlock, side- 
wise, 30 inches apart, with cross pieces 
inserted, also about 30 inches apart. 
Around the inner edges of the openings 
I nailed securely half of a common lath, 
ob f ained by ripping laths in two pieces, 
the lath strip being in the center of the 
2-inch surfaces of the frames. Pieces of 
board were tacked on the inside of the 
frame openings, temporarily, and on the 
outside also as each opening was filled 
with mortar, mixed pretty wet. so as to 
be sure to fill in smoothly and fit around 
the lath pieces at edg<fs. No other finish 
is necessary, cither inside or out. To 
2iri; 
make building stiffer and support the 
mortar against blows one can put a wire 
reinforcement diagonally in the frame 
spaces, doubling the wire and twisting 
tight, with a nail inserted at center of 
the span. 
When I built my henhouse I ran out 
of sand and gravel for one openiug. and 
I used a yellow loam found near the gar¬ 
den surface. The mortar thus composed 
was, of course, weak, but when I let a 
stick of lumber fall against it all the 
damage it did was to make a small hole, 
which I plastered up, and today the part 
made of the poor mortar seems to be just 
as serviceable and lasting as the really 
hard cement mortar. This indicates that 
a very lean mixture would answer every 
purpose, say six or eight of sand or gravel 
to one of cement. 
This mortared frame building is wind- 
tight and rainproof, and there is not 
enough of the mortar material to cause 
the house to be cool enough to condense 
moisture, as might be the case with a 
cement house with thick walls. 
GEOKGE WHITE. 
Monmouth Co., N. J. 
Controlling Red Mites 
Is there any way to rid our chicken 
coop of red mites? Would it help to 
fumigate with sulphur? We have been 
spraying two or three times a week, but 
they are between the boards, so we can¬ 
not reach them all in that way. M. s. 
It io not ordinarily at all difficult to 
rid poultry houses of red mites, as these 
parasites stay near the perches of the 
fowls and cluster in their hiding places 
'"through the day, where they may be got 
at. They may also be found (behind nest¬ 
ing boxes or wherever else fowls are in 
the habit of staying. Loose boards, 
cracks in or near the perches, and espe¬ 
cially the spaces beneath the ends of the 
perches, where they rest upon their sup¬ 
ports, conceal these mites, and need to 
be thoroughly drenched with the liquid 
used to kill them. Any oil will destroy 
these mites, and a hard grease, like tallow, 
melted and painted upon the perches 
while hot, will stay a long time in place 
and repel the parasites. As a local spray 
or paint, crude carbolic acid, either alone 
or mixed with three times its volume of 
kerosene, will prove very efficacious in 
destroying the mites and their eggs when 
painted or sprayed' over their hiding 
places. An occasional application of one 
of these liquids through the Summer 
should keep the premises free from red 
mites, and with very little trouble on the 
part of the caretaker. There are few 
poultry houses sufficiently tight to make 
the use of fumigation practicable, and the 
use of liquids has been found preferable. 
M. B. D. 
Rheumatism and Worms 
We have a flock of August-hatched 
chicks, 26 in number. They are afflicted 
in a way that we can neither determine 
cause nor cure. Some weeks ago one of 
the pullets became lame. It kept getting 
worse, the foot being drawn out and back 
until the foot pointed almost straight 
back. The joints were slightly enlarged. 
The bird, of course, became quite helpless. 
We killed it, and upon examination found 
the bones in the joints to be rather rough 
and brown in color. There was an in¬ 
flamed condition along the inside of the 
upper or thigh joint of the lame leg. Upon 
opening the gizzard wo found near its 
center a bloody accumulation, and upon 
investigation found four worms iu the 
spot, some of them imbedded half way 
into the wall of the gizzard. The worms 
were about three-fourths of an inch long, 
pointed at both ends. Two days ago an¬ 
other, one of the finest pullets of the 
bunch, showed soreness in its legs, and 
today ib is worse. Their sleeping place 
is well protected from all exposure to 
drafts. When the weather is rough they 
are kept inside. Their feed is corn, 
wheat, bran, potato parings and other 
vegetables cooked, seasoned and mixed 
with bran, also a bought feed called chow¬ 
der. w. c. P. 
Rheumatism or worms, of both. Until 
recently, at least, this trouble would have 
been ascribed to rheumatism, which it 
resembles in its symptoms, but there is 
an apparently well-founded belief that 
loss of the use of the legs is but one of 
the symptoms of intestinal worms that are 
present in such numbers as to disable 
and perhaps finally kill the host. Of the 
various worm remedies that have been 
found effectual, spirits of oil of turpentine 
has been found to be one of the best. 
This may be administered in teaspoonful 
doses, and is most certainly and effectu¬ 
ally given by gently inserting a soft rub¬ 
ber catheter down the bird’s crop and in¬ 
jecting the turpentine by means of a 
small glass syringe. Worm remedies 
should be given “on an empty stomach,” 
and may need to be repeated to accomplish 
their object. As expelled worms are 
quickly picked up from the droppings, no 
cure can be expected unless these drop¬ 
pings are kept from the fowls by frequent 
cleaning of the droppings boards. Rheu¬ 
matism is to be treated by keeping the 
affected birds in warm, dry quarters and 
giving plenty of green food and skim-milk. 
It is hardly worth while to attempt to 
treat it with drugs, thugh salicylate of 
soda in three to five-grain doses once daily 
would probably help those cases amenable 
to treatment. M. B. D. 
Everted Oviduct 
I have a laying house 44x20 ft., shed- 
roof type. In it I keep about 250 S. O. 
White Leghorn pullets. The house ia 
lighted by electricity from 5 a. m. I feed 
boiled potatoes in wet mash at noon, in 
addition to the dry mash before them all 
the time, and grain morning and night. 
For the last two months they are laying 
between 40 or 50 per cent daily, but I am 
losing too many birds from ruptures; 
have lost 30 already. In house 16x24 ft., 
semi-monitor type, I keep about 130 pul¬ 
lets ; feed them the same way, and they 
lay just as heavily and no trouble at all. 
Four weeks ago I gave tbein all a dose of 
Epsom salts. It checked their laying 
for a fev/ days, but stopped the malady. 
Last week I repeated the treatment, with 
the result of checking the laying, but not 
remedying the trouble in the least. What 
may be the cause and what can I do to 
prevent it? j. j. c. 
New Jersey. 
The causes of eversion of the oviduct 
are believed vo be inherent weakness in 
the walls and ligaments of the parts ren¬ 
dering them unable to stand the strain of 
heavy laying, together with such exciting 
causes as efforts to lay eggs too large for 
ready passage, constipation and accumu¬ 
lation of fecal masses in the cloaca, re¬ 
sulting in constant straining and final 
eversion. If discovered early, before th# 
everted organ has become lacerated or 
gangrenous, the protruding tissue may be 
carefully cleaned, oiled and put back into 
place. The bird should be then confined 
in a quiet place and lightly fed upon lax¬ 
ative foods until recovery. Unless treat¬ 
ment is instituted before other birds have 
lacerated the parts or the mass has be¬ 
come so large and constricted as to have 
suffered damage, there is nothing to be 
done but kill the fowl. This trouble is 
common in well-fed, heavy-laying flocks, 
and I know of no general treatment that 
will prevent it without at the same time 
checking egg production. It is probably 
an evidence of lack of constitutional vig¬ 
or and consequent inability to stand up 
under forced feeding and heavy produc¬ 
tion. Constipation may be guarded 
against by the use of laxative foods, and 
I would suggest that you cut out the 
boiled potatoes now fed and add linseed 
oilmeal to the dry mash in the proportion 
of one-eighth part, by weight. m. b. d. 
to mm 
Wintet 
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lOl Years in Business 
127 Woodrow St. Cincinnati, O. 
Branch— 823 Paxton St., Harrisburg, Pa. 
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Wood is Scarce—Coal is High 
Build a WARM House 
W ITH the winter winds howling and the 
cold creeping through the thin weather¬ 
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hugged the stove a little tighter, while someone 
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used in walls 
that aro 
stuccoed. 
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1112 Fulton Building 
Pittsburgh Pa. 
'•■ il MlUu- 
