A Count of Mallophaga on a Heavily Infested Hen

Abstract

The literature contains many accounts of experiments on the control of Mallophaga infesting chickens, but little accurate information on the number of lice that may infest them. Because of difficulties in counting the lice on birds, many experimenters have expressed infestations in terms of degrees (Telford, 1947; Edgar et al., 1949; MacCreary and Catts, 1954). Among a smaller group who made counts, Creighton et al. (1947) considered any chicken as heavily infested that supported a population of over 75 lice. Moore and Schwardt (1954) recorded a mean average of 37 to 100 lice per bird. Fairchild and Dahm (1955), in a number of experiments, recorded averages of 83 to 256 lice per hen, with a maximum of 400 on one bird. This is a report on the number of lice counted on a 14-month-old hen that was placed in a deep freeze after it died from natural causes.Previous examinations …