HOUSES FOE LAYERS. 45 



meal sifted out, or millet seed, far and wide on portions 

 of the range not provided with, straw, to encourage the 

 habit of running around and searching. Keep your 

 fowls always on the move. As soon as the buildings are 

 moved to the new stations in spring, and the feeding- 

 rooms are also drawn off to be used in housing young 

 chickens, the feed boxes are taken out, they merely rest- 

 ing on cleats without being fastened, and carried to the 

 stations, where they stand on the ground out of doors 

 during summer, for use each morning, chopped vegeta- 

 bles, meat or other soft feed being placed in them, out 

 of sight of the birds, as before. 



The winter quarters for the laying stock are further 

 represented in Fig. 11. In this cut the same building 

 is shown as in Fig. 9. The passage leading to the feed 

 room is shown in one of these cuts, and the feed room 

 is shown in the other. In Fig. 11, certain useful con- 

 trivances for windbreaks are illustrated, these being 

 highly prized by fowls in cold weather. When the 

 house is located for winter, the doors in the north roof 

 are covered with building paper in overlapping sheets, 

 tacked on slightly so that it may be removed in spring. 

 Straw is laid over the paper to the depth of a foot. A 

 temporary shed is made for a rod east, and the same dis- 

 tance west, of the building, connecting with the roof of 

 the latter, the platforms for drying earth, Fig. 6, being 

 used for this purpose and supported by stout rails. By 

 turning a corner, as at the post, A, east, and also west 

 of the building, this shed is made to inclose three sides 

 of a court which is open to the south. The gaps in the 

 roof of the shed at the corners, and the cracks between 

 the platforms, are covered with straw and boards. 

 There is nothing that fowls love better than convenient 

 nooks where they can retreat from the crowd of their 

 fellows, and select their own company. Confinement 

 brings not only loss of health, but the vices of feather- 



