DEPARTMENT OF POULTRY HUSBANDRY. 



During the year the Department of Poultry Husbandry has made con- 

 sistent growth in each division of its work. The activities of the depart- 

 ment divide as follows : First, administration ; second, instruction ; third, 

 investigation; fourth, correspondence; and fifth, enterprises in co-opera- 

 tion with the Extension Department. 



Administration. 



Many important improvements have been made which have added 

 materially to the efficiency and appearance of the poultry plant. Five 

 houses have been removed and remodeled and the land south of the new 

 laying-house has been graded and seeded. ' As a result, there is now a 

 modern pipe-system brooder-house, forty-five feet long, for rearing winter 

 chickens; a fattening-house thirty feet long; a killing-room, storage-room 

 and seven colony-houses, all of which were greatly needed. With the 

 $2,000 appropriated by the State, a modern laying-house has been built 

 276 feet long, containing twenty-three pens, admirably adapted to pur- 

 poses of instruction. A hot-water heating system and electric lights have 

 been placed in the main building. A room has been properly equipped 

 with gasoline engine, bone-cutters, feed-cutters, and the like for the teach- 

 ing of poultry mechanics. In the attic of the Dairy Building a com- 

 modious, well-equipped laboratory has been provided. All the buildings 

 of the Plant have been painted to match the color scheme of the College 

 of Agriculture, and cinder paths have been constructed and flower beds 

 laid out, which add greatly to the attractiveness of the Plant. 



Each year students have built a laying-house and brooder-houses as 

 part of their instruction, until now we have a capacity for wintering 

 1,500 head of poultry and for rearing about four thousand chickens 

 annually. 



Through the kindness of the Farm Department and the Department of 

 Grounds, we have been enabled this year to rear chickens under somewhat 

 normal conditions, which, heretofore, it has been impossible to do. As a 

 result, more and better chickens have been grown, with less mortality and 

 at a less expense than heretofore. This has resulted in a large increase in 

 the income from the sales of poultry and poultry products. 



