260 EXPEEIMEXTAL FARMS 



7-8 EDWARD VII., A. 190S 



A plant of similar design, but with cotton front to the pens, with a window in 

 the centre of each front, the front facing the south, is a style adopted at the poultry 

 plant of the Muskoka Free Hospital for Consumptives at Gravenhurst, Ontario, .fu 

 this establishment the di-y hopper feeding system has been adopted, and has proved 

 most satisfactory. The plant is in charge of Mr. E. S. Turville, one of the patients, but 

 an experienced and successful poultry man. Mr. Turville assured me that he is a 

 firm believer in fresh air and plenty of it, even if it is cold. ' I give my fowls,' he 

 said, ' the same treatment that we get here. Fresh air and any amount of it. We are 

 told that it is good for us and why should it not be good for my fowls V 

 'Do you get many eggs per day during the winter season?' 



' To-day, February 18th, we have collected 120, Sometimes we have a greater or 

 lesser number.' 



Some Reasons ivhy the Scratching Shed Addition was Abandoned. 



In conversation with the manager of the Pembroke Poultry establishment, I 

 asked him why he had not adopted the scratching shed addition to his houses. He 

 replied, 'We do not require it. I consider the scratching shed attachment useless ex- 

 pense. Had we considered it an advantage we should have embraced it in our system.' 



The foregoing is one reason from a practical source. Another may be given as 

 follows. 



Close observation for some winters past has shown that during cold dips the 

 birds are inclined to ' bunch ' in the roosting and laying room. If they do go to search 

 for their whole grain food which has been thrown into the litter on the floor of the 

 scratching shed, they quickly return to the other apartment. The lesson from this 

 is obvious. It is that the birds prefer the 'roosting room as being less cold than the 

 other. From this it is to be inferred that the latest style of house, which is really a 

 combination of the two 'styles described, will likely be the most suitable for this dis- 

 trict. 



Winter Houses for Ojher Provinces. — But there are other and newer 'provinces 

 in which poultry keeping is comparatively a new branch of work. In such cases an 

 appropriate style of house is a matter of importance. In a recently written letter, 

 Mr. A. W. Foley, Commissioner of Poultry for the Province of Alberta, states his 

 intention of testing various patterns of houses calculated to be suitable to the winter 

 conditions of his district. He also says he will be glad to try any suggested style that 

 would likely prove to be effective and not costly. The results of experimental work of 

 this nature cannot fail to be of very great interest. 



From Sunny Plains, Saskatchewan, Mr. C. E. Robinson writes in reply to a re- 

 quest — from the writer — to suggest a style of winter house suitable to his province, as 

 follows : ' Sunny Plains, Sask., February 20th, 1907. I regret that I have not the 

 means to try an experimental frame and sod house combined. From what I have seen 

 here of frame and sod houses for human habitation, I think a sod house can be made 

 as warm as a frame one, in fact, warmer. A neighbouring settler here has a sod house 

 which is the easiest one kept warm in the district, and which is also perfectly dry. I 

 have been thinking that a s'od poultry house might answer well, if properly constructed, 

 to keep poultry in.' In a more recent letter, Mr. Robinson emphasizes an important 

 feature in this sort of house by saying : — ' Last winter showed us that when other 

 buildings sweated, dripped and froze, the sod house was dry and fresh.' 



A Manitoba correspondent has an idea that the large quantities of straw in that 

 province and which in many cases go to waste, might be utilized to make comfortable 

 and cheap poultry houses. 



At the Macdonald College, Ste. Anne de Bellevue, P.Q., the colony house system 

 of keeping the winter layers has been to a great extent adopted, and was found highly 

 successful during the past cold season. 



