424 Missouri Agricultural Rejjort. 



the shade preventing them from becoming rusty and sunburned. 

 The yards are sown in a mixture of many grasses, including or- 

 chard grass, which thrive luxuriantly. Each house is provided 

 with an apartment open to the south; in this the fowls are fed 

 during the winter, the floor of same being covered with leaves (oak 

 and hickory preferred) or straw. The feed is scattered in the litter 

 upon the floor, the fowls being compelled in this manner to work 

 for their food, thus keeping warm and healthy. Ground bone, 

 oyster shell, grit and charcoal are kept in hoppers, where the fowl 

 can get them at all times. Green and soft food and green bone 

 is provided about once or twice a week, depending largely upon the 

 apparent condition of the fowl. The most important of all, and 

 that upon which the greatest stress must be laid, is, that water 

 should be furnished the fowls very often and in abundance. Dur- 

 ing the winter, the water is heated and given from two to five 

 times a day. No hen will lay unless she can get plenty of water, 

 no matter how well she is fed. The roosting house is partitioned 

 off from the scratching apartment, and is made very warm, but 

 no artificial heat is furnished. The roosts are made of 2x4 scant- 

 lings, which have been planed on the edges, and which are set in 

 cleats so that they can be removed without trouble and cleaned, and 

 in this manner kept free from vermin. Underneath the roosts are 

 dropping boards, and underneath the dropping boards are nests. 

 The hens in this way are provided a dark and quiet place for lay- 

 ing. The setting of the hens and incubators begins about the 

 middle of December, and stops the first of June. There are two 

 places in which the hatching in incubators is done; one is in the 

 cellar under the main residence, and the other is in a special house 

 erected at the end of a long brooder house. This latter house being 

 double boarded, tar papered and made very dark and tight, there 

 being but one small window on the southern side. A folding door 

 leads from this incubator house into the brooder house. The 

 brooder house has a long hallway to the back, and from this hall- 

 way there are twenty or more separate pens or runways, and in 

 each one of these is located a brooder of sufficient capacity to 

 house one hundred chicks. This house has a total capacity of over 

 two thousand young chicks. This house is heated by a large stove, 

 which is only used in extreme weather, as the heat from the 

 brooders is sufficient to keep it at proper temperature nearly all 

 of the time. The idea of having the incubator house and brooder 

 house opening into each other is to avoid the necessity of expos- 

 ing the young chicks to cold weather, when they are taken from 



