44 AN" EGG FARM. 



fc. high, and 1 ft. wide, it being like a box with a lid, 

 and but one end, and with an opening on one .side. 



This passage is not shown in the cut, but appears at 

 C, Fig. 11. Every night in winter, after the fowls are at 

 roost, the door, Fig. 9, should be closed, and the wijulow 

 shutters of the main building likewise. In the morning 

 a mixture of vegetables, boiled and mashed, scalded 

 meal, and a little meat boiled and chopped fine, is 

 placed in the feed trough, and the daily rations of hard 

 grain buried underneath straw, which covers the ground 

 of the feeding apartment to the depth of eight or ten 

 inches. The fowls are prevented, by the shutters, from 

 looking on. Next open the passage, and in a minute 

 the fowls will all be at the feed box. After finishing 

 the soft feed, the grain, consisting in part of buckwheat 

 or cracked corn or wheat screenings, so as to make as 

 much work as possible to find it, will be scratched 

 for at intervals all day long. A little practice will 

 enable the attendant to give just enough, and have none 

 left over night. Placing grain for scratching indoors is 

 only for inclement weather, however. 



During a few of the coldest spells, such as usually 

 occur three or four times in the winter, and last three 

 to seven days, and during storms, fowls prefer to 

 remain indoors all day ; but they should never, except in 

 the morning, before feeding, be prevented from going 

 out if they choose. Altogether, there are not usually 

 twenty days in a year during which fowls will voluntarily 

 keep inside all day. Snow should be cleared from a plat 

 of ground at each station, with the aid of the team, and 

 the scraper and shovel previously described, or a road 

 grader. If the winter is open and mild, have a pile of 

 straw out of doors with grain buried under it, using the 

 broadcast seeder and hay tedder before mentioned, and 

 whenever there is no snow start the broadcast seeder 

 and scatter a very little finely cracked corn with the 



