INTENSIVE AND SEMI-INTENSIVE POULTRY-KEEPING 



■' Now, in my opinion a man must never 

 attempt housing in the very large house unless 

 he has had many years of practical poultry- 

 keeping, because the very first thing that would 

 happen would be that the birds would have 

 roup, and the great point then is knowing 

 the moment the birds are infected, and using 

 the right remedies to cure them. If this 

 dreadful poultry disease is not checked in its 

 first stages, it will probably practically beggar 

 him. I have tried both the little-run system 

 and the large intensive house, but to-day, if 

 I were going in purely for eggs, and not for 

 selling sittings for hatching purposes, I would 

 certainly build the large house ; but, mind 

 you, I say again a man must know his busi- 

 ness. This house would be the semi-intensive 

 and not the intensive system. 



"Perhaps I might give a little of my own 

 experience. In igi2 I put 400 la\'crs into my 

 semi-intensive house, and, keeping it entirely 

 closed up, made it fully intensive, and thought 

 of doing great things, as I had read a lot of 

 correspondence in the papers, and imagined 

 the system quite feasible. The birds did very 

 well indeed for three or four months, then 

 I found they began to ail — something like 

 pining it was — and gradually lost colour and 

 condition ; their combs turning quite white. 

 However, I thought I 



about nineteen years. 

 This was turning the 

 birds out when the 

 weather was fine — all 

 day if the day was 

 suitable— and closing 

 them up at night. On 

 a rainy day I would 

 keep them up until 

 the w^eather and runs 

 were suitable ; if 

 snowy closed in all 

 the time, and if frosty 

 kept up until the air seemed suitable ; then 

 out they would go, if only for an hour. The 

 birds were, of course, fed inside the house 

 all the time, in our usual way with the large 

 flocks. And, in my opinion, it is this semi- 

 intensive system that is best in Engand, and 

 in any other country if tried, and the other 

 plan I do not consider will stay. 



"After I had let the birds out day by day 

 for about a fortnight, they had got into the 

 best of condition, and I had an abundance of 

 eggs from them. This proved to me con- 

 clusively which plan was right. 



" This house, which has since again been 

 used as a semi-intensive house, is 72 ft. long, 

 18 ft. wide, and 18 ft. to eaves. It has a 

 span roof boarded underneath, and with corru- 

 gated iron covering this woodwork. In the 

 south wall it is fitted with shutter windows, 

 which, by means of ropes and pulleys and 

 counter balance weights, can each be lifted 

 or let down at will, according to the weather 

 and time of year ; the openings being covered 

 with wire netting. This makes the south wall 

 an open front the whole length. A storm 

 screen, 3 ft. wide, is fixed outside the building 

 just above these windows, keeping out the rain 

 during close but wet weather, and checking 

 the power of the sun's rays into the house. 



persevere and 

 this intensive 



would 

 master 

 plan, but at the end 

 of six months it was 

 necessary to turn the 

 birds out, or they 

 would have all died. 

 Some were lost as it 

 was, and I thought it 

 quite time to give up, 

 all the birds having 

 gone off laying. 



" I then went back 

 to my old plan, which 

 had been used for 

 b 



Front View of One of Mr. Toovey's Houses. 



