The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1890-01-31
TICKS ON SHEEP.

Some Valuable Hints for Keeping the
Flock Free from These Pests.
The English mutton herds of sheep
and their grades and crosses are much
more liable to be troubled by ticks than
Merinos. says Joseph Harris in the
American Agricultural. Every En-
glish farmer dips his sheep two or three
times year to kill ticks. Scores OF
preparations are sold for this purpose,
and men go round from farm to farm
with convenient apparatus for dipping
the sheep, and do the work at SO much
head.
As to the relative merits Of mutton
sheep and Merinos much may be said.
But that is not our purpose at this time;
what we wish to say now is, il you are
keeping any opcn-wooled sheep Of any
kind and have not dipped them yet. do
not let another week pass without doing
so. 1t is cruel to the sheep and a great
loss to you. We once visited farmer
in Maine who had given up Merinos and
was keeping grade Cotswolds. 81 feed
them WE'LL" he said, ''but they do not
seem to thrive. 1t does not Pay to keep
Merinos for wool alone, and then grade
Cotswolds are not going to prove profit
able. l think shall have to give up
sheep altogether and keep more cows"
This was in the winter. We caught
one of the sheep and on opening the
fleece found it literally alive and black
with ticks. We have found many such
instances elsewhere. Before winter sets
in sheep should be dipped twice; once to
kill all the ticks, and again, two or three
weeks later, to kill the young ticks
Matched out from the eggs laid previous
to the first dipping. This will effect
ually cure the evil. The ticks are easily
killed. A favorite dip is made from to-
bacco stems or from cheap tobacco. We
have for many years used q dip made Of
pound of soap and pint Of crude car
bolic acid to fifty gallons Of water. The
only point to be observed is to keep the
mixture we'll thinned. Dissolve the
soap in gallon or more of boiling water
and add the carbolic acid and stir thor
oughly. Then mix with water in the
proportion named above. In dipping let
some trusty man have hold of the head
of the sheep and see that none of the
mixture gets into the mouth, or nos
trils, or eyes. Each sheep should be
held in the dip not less than half
minute.
A dip that will probably be more con-
veniently made is mixture of soap and
kerosene, or skinned milk and kero-
sene. Take two gallons of kerosene
and a gallon of milk. Put them in a
churn and churn rapidly for ten or fif-
teen minutes. If the milk is boiling hot
when put in the churn with the kero-
sene it will be all the better. When
thoroughly churned put two gallons of
the emulsion in the dipping tub or bar
rel with twenty gallons of water, stir it
up, and commence dipping the sheep.
The reserved gallon of emulsion will be
needed to make more dip to keep the
tub or barrel full enough to cover the
sheep. In our own trials We used soap
instead of milk. Boil a gallon OF water,
and put in it pound of soap, and stir
till it is dissolved. Then add two gal
Ions of kerosene and churn as before,
or, if you have a good syringe or force
pump, churn 1t with that for ten min
utes, or till all the oil is ''cut," and the
emulsion is complete.
1t is not improbable that with so much
soap as above recommended the dip may
need to be little stronger-say one
gallon of the emulsion to eight gallons
of water. We like to use plenty of soap
to avoid any possible injury to the wool.
A pound of white hellebore powder to
each two gallons Of soap and kerosene
makes dip that finishes the
ticks in few minutes. The dip with.
out the hellebore will do the work. You
will find no live ticks the next morning,
and there is some reason to believe that
it will kill the eggs also. But it is al
ways safer and better to give a second
dipping in two or three weeks, and be
sure you dip every sheep in the flock.