Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1877 — To Exterminate Parasites of Fowls. [ARTICLE]

To Exterminate Parasites of Fowls.

“ One ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure,” says the old adage. In iregard to parasitic insects of poultry, this is particularly true. It is much less trouble to keep them down, so as to be almost entirely clear of them, than it is to fight a host of vermin. I said almoet, for there is, no doubt, a remnant always remaining of some lice, for no sooner are the ordinary cleanliness and vigilance relaxed, than they again show themselves. If fowls are kept in a damp place without dust or dry earth, these insects immediately appear in large numbers. The methods of destroying most of them are very easy. The poll-tick is prevented or got rid of by slightly greasing the heads of the chicks as soon as hatched. The same process, repeated once a week for about two or three weeks, will carry ithem beyond further danger. I will not omthis subject give the Latin names of insects, as I find so much variableness and so few varieties described that it is well to employ the terms in common use. Of the varieties that still remain on the fowl, there arc two 'distinct classes: Lice that suck the blood from the fowl’s body, all of which havfe their mouths near the ends of their noses, and another class that live on and eat the feathers. These latter have their mouths under the middle of the head, and of them there are several varieties, differing from each other in form, .color, and size. Both kinds can be got rid of by dusting sulphur well into the feathers of the birds. If the chickens are young and under the hen, dust the hen thoroughly with sulphur, and, provided the usual dust bath be supplied, this treatment will keep the fowls clean, if repeated about once a week. Of the gape-worm, it is difficult to say anything positive, though of course prevention is best. In order to get rid of this pest, the Burest way, when a yard is once infestest, is to remove the fowls entirely away from the contaminated ground. I know of a yard that was infested for many yean. One year the chickens were all taken across a brook to another part of the firnn and nut allowed to visit the old ground until too large to get the disease. No trace of the gapes has been seen there since then, although several years have elapsed. Home poultry authorities say that there is a connection between the gape-worm and a kind of louse, and that the latter either introduces or extends the gapeworm; but, after some experiments, I am satisfied no such connection exists. Of the remedies for gapes I cannot say much, as there are as many advanced with as much positiveuess as there are cures for the toothache. If attended to in time, the worms can sometimes be drawn out with a twisted horse-hair or a thin feather. Care must be taken that the hair enters the windpipe, as the worms are there and not in the throat. Details of this process would make too long a chapter, so I simply generalize the subject until properly treated. Carbolic acid fumes inhaled by the chicks, either in a box or by holding the chink over the acid, helated hot in a spoon over a lamp, will also sometimes dislodge them; but when the worms get low down in the throat, when the windpipe branches, there is not much hope for the sufferer. 7The house-mite or spider, that Urea in the wood-work of dirty nests, is easily got

rid of by cleanliness, whitewash or petro leum and fumigation. A good way is to saturate all the inside wood-work with’ crude petroleum. For scaly-leg itch, soak the legs with kerosene ou, holding the toes upward, so that ths oil will ran well under the scales. Two or three applications generally effect a cure. Intestinal worms are dislodged by a decoction of wormwood, or the leaves may be cat up and given in food, or a pill made of aloes may be administered; but these pests are rarely numerous enough to be of serious consequence.— Henry Hales, in Rural Hem Yorker