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Show LICE ON SITTING HENS Methods for Freeing Fowls and Nests of All Vermin. Infested Quarters Should Be Treated Thoroughly Before Fowls Are Placed on Eggs Remove Broken Eggs and Straw. (From the United States Department ot Agriculture.) Great care should be taken to keep nests occupied by sitting hens free from mites. It is hard to work effectively ef-fectively against the mites when many hens are brooding. Oil in the form of crude petroleum sprays the treatment treat-ment recommended by specialists in the United States department of agricultural agri-cultural used freely about the house at that time, may soil the eggs and prevent successful hatching. Infested quarters, therefore, should be treated thoroughly before hens are set, so as to start them in nests which are absolutely abso-lutely clean. Beneath the straw of the nest a layer of lime and sulphur will tend to prevent mite breeding, and the entire nest may be dusted occasionally oc-casionally with pyrethrum. Broken eggs ana the straw soiled by them should be removed promptly, as they tend to attract mites. Medicated nest eggs, said to control poultry lice, are on the market. These consist largely of naphthalene. While this material will destroy lice when applied generally to the fowl, it is injurious in-jurious to the hen's eggs as well as to the bird. If used in quantity, or if the medicated eggs are allowed to remain for some time beneath a hen, she may die as a result. Sodium fluorid powder, dusted on the fowl, or dissolved in water and used as a dip, is the best remedy for lice. Farmers' Farm-ers' bulletin S01, "Mites and Lice on Poultry," by F. C. Bishopp and n. P. Wood, gives detailed directions for administering this treatment. |