POULTRY HOUSES 377 



with wire doors in the partitions, to allow passage through 

 the various pens. In houses containing many pens, doors 

 are sometimes provided to give entrance from the pens 

 into the yards. 



The fattening house is a small structure containing crates 

 in which fowls are fattened, arranged along each side of a 

 passage way. The house is simple of construction, and has 

 superior ventilation with inferior light, as fowls are best 

 fattened under conditions of subdued light. Fattening 

 crates are in tiers, with feeding trays in front of each, 

 which with other conditions provide for the least amount 

 of labor in caring for the 

 birds. Houses of this 

 kind are not common on 

 American farms, but are 

 used especially by men 

 who make a business of 

 fattening fowls for market. 



The brooder, house is 

 for the purpose of shelter- 

 ing yOUng Chickens Under Fig. 208. A colony house and brooder. Pho- 

 ,, . tograph by courtesy Prof. F. S. Jacoby. 



conditions of uniform heat, 



giving them protection under what are called "hovers," 

 comparable with the shelter under the mother's wing. 

 A brooder house may be a simple box-like affair of one 

 room 6 by 8 feet in size, with the hover in the back 

 and a door and window in front. The hover is round, 

 about 3 feet in diameter, and resembles a pan turned 

 upside down, except that its sides are made of cloth, 

 which is slashed at the edges. Warm air is conducted into 

 the hover, and here the young chicks gather, as under a 

 mother's wing. The small brooder house has either a kero- 

 sene or gasoline lamp attachment, by which the necessary 



