May 21, 187J. J 



JOURNAL OF HOBTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEB. 



415 



a union will usually produce pure yellow birds ; while a clear 

 yellow male mated witli a green female will usually produce 

 baudaome mottled youug. A very deep yellow male mated with 

 a very deep ^rf i=u or brown heu often produces the highly-prized 

 Cinnamon bird. 



3rd. Shape. — In breeding for form much taste can be dis- 

 played. Some prize form more than colour or song. — James S. 

 Bailey, M.D. — [Ainerican Fanciers' Journal.) 



BABBIT HUTCHES. 



Undoubtedly the m )3t satisfactory system of keeping Kabbits 

 is in hutches. Under this method the owner can at any time 

 examine his stock, and make any changes he may think neces- 

 sary. It frequently happens that a doe will have a litter of eight 

 or ten ; this is too many to leave with her, if the owner wishes 

 large and healthy animals. If they are in well-arranged breed- 

 ing hutches they are easy to get at, and the small and weakly 

 ones may be taken out and destroyed ; or the litter may be 

 divided, part being given to a nurse-doe, provided one is in 

 readiness. 



After trying several different styles of hutches — some a simple 

 dry-goods box; others got up quite elaborately with moveable 

 zinc bottoms, to be drawn out and washed and scrubbed — I have 

 designed and constructed a stack of twenty hutches, which I 



This trough may be covered with a piece of board notched oa 

 the lower edge, or with wire-cloth of about one-quarter-of-an- 

 inch mesh. I do not, however, consider this essential where 

 plenty of litter is kept in the hutch ; although I have them all 

 covered in my own rabbitry. The floor of the upper tier is the 

 same asfig. 2, leaving out the partitions p r. 



The floors are of tongaeand-grooved pine or spruce, covered 

 with two coats of paint. The ends and centre partition are of 

 ordinary-faced pine boards 1 inch thick ; the strips to which the 

 fronts are hinged are of the same material, 2 inches wide ; the 

 frames of the wire fronts are 1 by IJ inch; the wires are No. 8 

 gauge, tinned, and are placed 1 and 14 inch apart in the buck's pen, 

 and 1 inch in the breeding pen, to prevent the young from falling 

 through. The outer doors of the nests are of half-inch boards, 

 Tlie top and back may be either of inch or half-inch boards. A 

 hutch of this size will take about 80 feet of Ijoards ; 6 lbs. of 

 tinned wire; four pairs of li inch iron butt hinges; two pair 

 three-quarter-inch brass butts ; four li inch cast iron buttons; 

 and two 1-inch brass or iron buttons; about 1 lb. of eightpenny 

 nails, one of sixpenny, and lialf a pound of threes; three dozen 

 screws, thi-ee-quarter-inch No 'J, and one and one-half dozen 

 screws, half inch. No. (1; a piece of zinc 3 feet long and 2 feet 

 wide, and a paper of ten-ounce tacks. The prices of materials 

 will of course vary in different localities. A carpenter should 

 build it in about two days. 



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Fig. 1. 



Fig. 8. 



consider much superior to anything I have heretofore used, and 

 which I think will fully meet the requirements of fanciers. 



Fig. 1 is a front view of a two-tier stack of hutches, divided 

 into four apartments. In the upper tier. No. 1 may be used for 

 the buck, and No. 2 for the weanlings. The lower tier are 

 breeding hutches for the does. This stack is 6i feet long, 3 feet 

 10 inches from floor to top, and 2 feet 2 inches deep, outside 

 measurement. The hutches, Nos. 1 and 2, are each 3 feet IJ inch 

 long, 2 feet deep, and 15 inches high, inside measurement. Fig. 2 



^oC 



Fig. 2. 



is a diagram of the floor arrangement of the lower tier, h h are 

 the two pens for the does, each 2 feet 3 inches long, and the same 

 depth and height as the upper tier, n n are the nesting apart- 

 ments, each 10 inches wide by 17 inches deep ; the partitions 

 p P being of half-inch boards, leaving an opening at E 6 inches 

 wide and 8 inches high, which may be closed with either a drop or 

 slide door, o g o is an enclosed space G inches wide and 21 inches 

 long, extending the entire height of the stack, and open at both 

 top and bottom. G G are openings, 2 by 1 inches, covered with 

 wire gauze, for purposes of ventilation, and are placed in each 

 tier near the top or ceiling, t t are zinc troughs at the back of 

 the hutch to catch the urine and carry it into a tub or earthen 

 vessel placed under the lower ends at o. Fig. 3 shows the de- 

 scending floors with the beams, b n, extending the length of the 

 hutch, and on which the rear ends of the floors rest. The floor 

 is 2 inches shorter than the depth of the hutch, thus allowing 

 the water to run into the trough T, which is also inclined, being 

 1 inch higher at the ends than in the middle at o (see fig. 2). 



This arrangement presents many good points. The ventila- 

 tion and drainage are as nearly perfect as can be ; the doors 

 being hinged at the top, when raised give free access to aU parts 

 of the main hutch, and the floors being level with the front are 

 easily cleaned. , „ , , ■ 



My own hutches are built four tiers high and five long, making 

 twenty hutches in this one stack. The upper tier— five hutches 

 — being used for stock bucks. 



This article is already longer than I intended it should be, 

 but I cannot close without giving a short description 

 of the arrangement of my rabbitry, in answer to some 

 ten or a dozen readers of the " Bulletin." My mam 

 room is 24 feet long by IG wide ; on the north side, 

 beginning at the east corner, is the stack of hutches 

 above mentioned, the top being GJ feet from the floor ; 

 across the entire west end is another stack of hutches ex- 

 tendmg to the ceiUng, 84 feet high ; the upper tier, how- 

 ever, are large square hanging pens, 3 by 4 feet, ana 

 2i feet high ; these were built for penning young stock 

 of two to five months old; across the south side is 

 another stack of hutches, eightetn in mumber, three-tier 

 high. In both north and south sides, above the hutches, 

 are three sliding windows, covered on the outside with strong 

 half-inch galvanised wire netting. The door is on the south 

 side, a little to the east of the middle of the building; on the 

 east end is a door leading into my greenhouse, and also the 

 " spouts " which conduct the grain from the bins in the lott 

 above. Through the floor above, and extending up through the 

 roof is a ventilating tube, which carries ofl any foul air which 

 mi"ht accumulate in cold weather, when the windows are neces- 

 sarily kept closed. In addition to these fifty -four hutches, I have 

 another building with four large pens, each .5 by 10 feet and 

 also eleven portable hutches, and six sectional ones, all of which 

 were in use, and crowded the past season.— A. M. Halsted.— 

 (Pet-Stock Bulletin.) 



BOUP. 



In my first experience with roup, overcrowding was the sola 

 cause. To the inexperienced let me say, Keep your coops clean 

 and dry; do not expose your fowls to cold winds and dampness, 



