No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 393 



iu six mouths and ouce each year therc^after (his is a roof that will 

 last a dozen years or lon<;er. It is absolutely impervious to either 

 water or air. 



The dropping boards of the best tongued aud grooved flooriug 

 should tit snugly into the siding at the back of the house so that no 

 air can circulate between tlicui. They are thirty inches from the 

 floor, leaving abundant scralching room beneath. The perches, 2x4 

 scantling, smoothed and flat side up, are 8 inches above the dropping 

 boards, and are easily removable for cleaning and painting with 

 liquid lice killer occasionally. 



On the two perches, each 12 feet long, there is abundant room for 

 30 hens, but we never allow more than 25 in one flock. If we were 

 keeping 7,000 hens instead of TOO we should simply multiply these 

 four houses tenfold. A house 90 feet long, containing 8 of these 

 12x12 apartments, is the best sized house we can imagine. The 

 strong feature of this house is its low roof. The hens do not need 

 to heat a large volume of air with their bodies. Their perches being 

 close to the roof, with both roof and dropping board tight, and well 

 removed from the ventilation in front, they can always be comfort- 

 able at night. • 



Allow me to insist that you do not make the house higher. I 

 would prefer to have it one foot lower but for the inconvenience iu 

 cleaning it. The short man who will have a care not to bump his 

 head against the rafters may profitably make the rear-posts 3^ feet 

 high, the front ones 4| feet, and the tie beam that connects the 

 rafters at each partition 5^ feet, and will gain more in eggs every 

 month than he will save in lumber. 



Why is this? I do not know. I can only guess at it. The hen's 

 body is small and she does not need to give off so much heat to warm 

 her house if it is small. The hen ought to have a floor space 2x3 

 feet in order to get exercise; but this space need be only one foot 

 high, thus giving her a total of 6 cubic feet of air space to place her 

 on equal terms with the 1,000 lb. horse or cow that occupies a box 

 stall 10x14 and 7 feet high. Now in our little sawed-off house that 

 I have suggested, 25 hens have more than five times the cubic air 

 space they really need. So it is only to give them room to scratch 

 and to give the attendant room to get into it that we make the house 

 more than one foot high. 



Now, the business hen does not sutler with the cold much in day- 

 time, even in so large a house. Scratching for a living makes her 

 blood circulate rapidly. At night is the trying time, and we find 

 that wise breeders of Leghorns, particularly, are overcoming the 

 difficulty by dropping a muslin curtain from the roof to the front 

 edge of the dropping board at night. This gives them a chance to 

 warm up a smaller volume of air with their bodies even when inac- 

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