New and Improved Poultry Appliances. 



257 



the nest installed underneath the droppings board. Plate II shows it in 

 use on the wall. The wall form is preferred and has been tried with and 

 without the hinged top. It would seem that the hinged 

 top serves little purpose other than to facili- 

 tate cleaning and replenishing the 

 nest with straw, because the hens 

 come to the front of the nest 

 after they have laid and will 

 readily walk out when the trap 

 is opened. (Plate II, Fig. 2.) This 

 ["" rf nest is very simple to operate. The 



fact that the trap in front is closed, 

 shows the attendant that there is a hen 

 in the nest. (Plate II, Fig. 4.) When 

 he removes the hen, he has reset the 

 nest. The trap being made of galvan- 

 ized iron, does not offer a very inviting 

 place for the hens to loaf, and so does 

 away almost entirely with the possi- 

 bility of more than one hen entering 

 the nest. (Plate II, Fig. i.) 



When the nests are put under the 

 droppings board, the floor comes un- 

 der the nest part only. (Plate I, Fig. 

 I, 2, 3 and 4.) This is to keep any 

 straw from getting under the trap and 

 preventing it from working easily. 

 The nests are built in sections without 

 top or bottom and are slid in under- 

 neath the trap parts, much on the 

 same principle as a table drawer. 

 (Plate I, Fig. 3.) 



The wall nests are placed on 

 brackets or are screwed to the 

 wall through the back of the 

 nests. The tops are made slant- 

 ing to prevent the fowls from 

 roosting on them. The bottoms 

 are made of one-half inch mesh 



i 



t-^"'-* 



-XI 



f^ 



^ 



Fig. 89. — End view of feed-hopper. 

 Note curved bottom and front which 

 insures a positive force feed. 



galvanized hardware cloth which goes under the nest parts only, the end 

 sought being a nest with as few places as possible for mites to breed and 

 that is self-cleaning. This is an experiment that is giving very satisfac- 

 tory results. 



17 



