—Lancaster Farming, Friday, Sept. 6, 1957 12 Basic Studies Helping Pinpoint Location of Blackhead Parasites Basic studies are helping pin- point location of blackhead para bles m turkeys This should lead to timing of drugs to knock out liihe organisms when they aie most \ Ulnerable Much of the USDA work on this costly and serious disease is being earned on with a harmless strain of the blackhead parasite Use of this strain has helped resarchers to turn up other new and useful information on disease aspects that are obscure when the disease is severe Blackhead is caused by a mi- croscopic parasite Histomonas meleagndis that attacks the two cece (blind gut) and liver of turkeys and sometimes chickens The histomonad spends part of its life in the eggs of the cecal worm- Heterakis gallinae a parasite that’s commonly found in the ceca of turkeys and chickens Cecal worm infected birds pass large numbers of microscopic eggs in their droppings If the birds have blackhead, these worms eggs may carry histomon ads Turkeys and chickens acquire blackhead by swallowing the in fected worm eggs with soil, feed, or water Infected turkeys may die in large numbers Losses re sult also from slow gains, mar keting delays, and carcass down- DAIRYMEN! Get Full Information About the New Patented ESCO “ICY- WfILL” Bulk MHk Cooler Thm exclusive patented "ICY-WALL” Principle... Cools your milk fastei Keeps your milk colder Drop in, write or phone for Complete information. No obligation. Stauffer Diesel Refrigeration GORDONVILLE, RDI. grading Chickens aie not very suscep tible to blackhead but may carry cecal worms, which are parasi tized by the histomonads If chick ens and turkeys are laised toge ther, susceptble turkeys can easily acquire blackhead Seveial years ago, ARS re searchers at the Agricultural Re search Centei,' Beltsville, Md, found that some of their turkeys had blackhead organisms but showed no symptoms and thrived normally Vaitetions m vnulence of the blackhead parasite had long been lecogmzed, and Beltsville scientists at first thought the strain was merely attenuated or weakened Research with 600 turkeys and 300 chickens for three years proved it was a true—but harm less—strain of the blackhead 6r gansm The only obvious differ ences are that the harmless form is generally larger and has more flagella (whip-like structures) Work with this non-pathogemc strain is helping parasitologist Everett Lund and associates to study, among other things, the probable timing of medication in relation to the life cycle of the worm and histomonad. It’s important to know when to tieat infected birds, what kind of CKS PULLETS Now! Operates at' lower cost Ph. Intercourse SO 8-8531 UAtotg Available ocks mpshires F, Oxford, Pa. 286 Collect Costs less to install 4- VI h : y 1 .fi shire rams to produce the lamb crop. Helping unload the ewes was County Agent Max Smith, who made arrange ments for the sale and delivery The rest of the car-load of 211 went to Juniata, Adams and York Counties. (LF Photo) ARE YOU WEATHERWISE? Want to be your own weather man 9 Penn State has an eight lesson correspondence course on weather sent without charge to residents ol Pennsylvania Write to Farm Study Courses, University Park, Pa , for the first lesson.