Mites can be killed with various liquids, the best in point of cheapness is boiling water.  Give the chicken-house a thorough cleaning and scald by throwing dippers of hot water in all places where the mites can find lodgment.  Hot water destroys the eggs as well as the mites.  Whitewash is a good remedy, as it buries both mites and eggs beneath a coating of lime from which they cannot emerge.  Pure kerosene or a solution of carbolic acid in kerosene, at the rate of a pint of acid to a gallon of oil, is an effective lice-paint.  Another substance much used for destroying insects or similar pests is carbon bisulphide.  This is a liquid which evaporates readily, the vapor destroying the insects or mites.  Carbon bisulphide or other fumigating agents are not effective in the average chicken-house because the house cannot be tightly closed.  The liquid lice-killers on the market are very effective.  They are usually composed of the remedies just mentioned, or of something of similar properties.

CHAPTER IX

POULTRY FLESH AND POULTRY FATTENING

The poultry flesh which is used for food may be grouped into three divisions.

First:  Poultry carcasses grown especially for market.

Second:  Poultry carcasses consisting of hens and young male birds that are sold from the general farms where the pullets are kept for egg production.

Third:  The cockerels and old hens sold as a by-product from egg farms.

The third class hardly needs our consideration in the present chapter.  This stock, usually Leghorns, like Jersey veal, is to be disposed of at whatever price the market offers.

The cockerel will, if growing nicely, be fairly plump and the hens, if on hopper rations of corn and beef scrap, will be about as fat as they can be profitably made, and to waste further effort upon them would not pay.  Leghorn cockerels and hens are a wholesome enough meat, but will never command fancy prices nor warrant extra pains.

In class two we find the great mass of the poultry flesh of the country.  This stock consisting chiefly, as it does, of Plymouth Rocks and Wyandottes, is well worth some extra pains toward increasing its quantity and quality.

Within the last ten or fifteen years several changes have been brought about in the general methods of handling farm poultry.  Formerly it was thought desirable to market all stock not kept as layers while in the broiler stage of from 1-1/2 to 2 pounds.  Since the introduction of the custom of holding fall broilers over in cold storage, the price has fallen until it is now more profitable to market the surplus cockerels from the farm at three or four months of age.  At this period the flesh has cost less per pound to produce than at either an earlier or later stage.  For such purposes only the well fleshed type of American breeds has been found desirable.  The Leghorns and similar breeds are too small and become staggy too soon.