MANAGEMENT OF SMALL SPACE. 



large enough for the numbers usually stated with 

 them : thus a house four feet square is often given 

 as " suitable for twelve fowls." It is nothing of 

 the sort : more than half that should not be 

 placed in it, unless small breeds on a wide 

 range. Except on such a large run, or with 

 some other shelter available, or in some sheltered 

 position, such as a shrubbery, the area of the 

 bottom shed is not altogether sufficient. With 

 such adjuncts it may be ; but care should be 

 taken to raise the ground some inches, and 

 special care to constantly renew clean dry dust- 

 ing material, unless other dusting places are 

 available. Another point to remember is that 

 in snow or rain the fowls, crowding under the 

 shelter, arc very likely, at night, to remain there, 

 rather than go out momentarily into tbi- wet 

 to go up to roost ; this should always be looked 

 after. Chinks may, not unlikely, open after a 

 while in the floor, and cause draught : such must 

 be stopped by some material if it is so. Even 

 the entrance, in its raised position, is far more 

 exposed than when on the ground ; and such a 

 house should therefore always be turned to a mild 

 quarter. It is often convenient, and certainly 

 better, as a rule, where ready-made buildings 

 are purchased, to get a shed entirely separate, 

 such as are also supplied by the makers of the 

 houses. 



Somewhere in each shed, and in the driest 

 part of it if any damp comes in anywhere, there 

 must be a heap of fine dry earth. 

 Dust-bath. or road-dust, or finely sifted ashes, 

 in which the fowls may roll and 

 cleanse themselves from insect vermin — their 

 only means of doing so. To answer its purpose 

 this must be renewed every now and then, 

 and especially never allowed to remain long if 

 it gets damp. One plan is to part off a back 

 corner of the shed about a yard square, by two 

 boards about six inches high placed on edge, 

 and to keep this place filled to the top. The 

 only case where special provision is not necessary 

 is where the entire shed floor is some inches 

 deep in dry loose material, kept clean and re- 

 newed as above described. Then the fowls can 

 use that at pleasure. 



Before leaving the smallest houses, it may 

 be well to answer a question, often put to us, 

 as to the smallest space in which it 

 Small Space, is possible to keep a few fowls, in 

 health and to some profit ; or the 

 query often takes the form of asking how many 

 can be kept in a " house " of given size, say five 

 feet square, and a certain height. The number 

 to be kept in these cases never depends upon 

 the size of the house (though it would do so 

 were the house in a park or large range), but 



on that of the shed and run. Taking medium- 

 sized fowls, such as Minorcas, our experience 

 taught us that the minimum was about ten to 

 twelve square feet of run to each fowl ; thus, 

 half a dozen would need a shed, say six feet by 

 twelve. But this supposes a shed kept perfectly 

 dry, and an amount of cleanliness which many 

 people would never dream of, with most careful 

 dieting. Large fowls would need more, bantams 

 less. Such confinement supposes that offending 

 matter be taken out every day from the shed as 

 well as the house, and no refuse ever left therein. 

 With all precautions, such confinement is very 

 apt to produce the vice of feather-eating ; but 

 this may not occur, and we are only speaking 

 of health and profit. 



Such small space must be ail of it covered 

 dry sited, yet with plenty of light and some sun, 

 and cleanliness is easiest preserved by flooring 

 it with some inches of fine dry earth, or sand, 

 which is to be raked clean every day. A 

 common rake will be useless ; but by driving 

 long and thin French nails a quarter-inch apart 

 into the edge of a strip of wood, and then 

 cutting off the heads with wire nippers to the 

 same length, a rake is formed that will remove 

 most of the offensive matter. The only other 

 way is to scrape up an inch deep of the material, 

 and sift it through a wire sieve. If once a run 

 begins to " smell," it means disaster ; and it is 

 to be remembered that there may be no smell 

 apparent to a human being, while a fowl, so 

 much nearer the ground, may suffer from the 

 poisonous exhalations. Disinfectants are of no 

 practical use in this case ; one bad smell does 

 not remove the evil of another. 



Supposing more space can be given to the 

 fowls, it will be far better to consider, as the 



first claim upon it, a fair amount of 

 Double House Open rini in front of a single house 

 and Yard. and shed. The latter need not then 



cost nearly so much labour. On a 

 yet larger, but still limited scale, the plan in 

 Fig. 7 may be recommended from experience, 

 having served us well personally for some years. 

 It will be sufficient, if there is besides some other 

 bit of shelter, and a lawn or grass run, or even 

 another piece of yard, in which chickens can be 

 cooped and reared for the first few months of 

 their lives, to rear for exhibition a few fowls 

 of such breeds as do not require separate pens 

 to breed the two sexes. It consists of two 

 houses, sheds, and runs such as above described, 

 separated by a small open shed and run, which 

 we used for sitting hens, and which also comes 

 in handy for many other purposes. The plan as 

 shown covers a space of thirty-five by twenty- 

 five feet, on which scale the open yards must be 



