THE LEGHORNS 



placed together, the center one being the laying house. 

 The laying house sometimes serves the double purpose 

 of a laying and feed house. One end of the house 

 is partitioned ofif for a feed bin — a self-feeding bin or 

 hopper. Several sacks of whole vi^heat are stored in this 

 bin and by opening a door at the bottom the hens are 

 allowed access to the wheat, the practice being to open 

 this bin or hopper in the afternoon for the fowls to eat 

 at will. 



The houses are all built on runners, but the plan of 

 moving them does not seem to be universal. On farms 

 that I visited three years previously the houses had not 

 been moved in the interim. In practice, the colony house 

 is not always moved. On some of the farms the land is 

 somewhat hilly and sheltered places are selected for the 

 houses, and they are usually left there rather than move 

 them on to more exposed places. It looked, however, 

 on some farms, as though the houses were allowed to re- 

 main without moving as a matter of neglect. 



While the house I have described is the typical one at 

 Petaluma and is used on small ranches as well as large 

 ones, there are many other styles. There are houses of 

 cement and houses of galvanized iron; there are cheap 

 houses and expensive houses; there are open-front houses; 

 there are large houses as well as small ones; stationary 

 houses as well as colony houses, as may be seen by the 

 illustrations herewith. But the small house described is 

 used on the great majority of farms, large and small, and 

 it is this house that has given Petaluma its reputation. 



The Free Range System 



On the larger farms the fowls have unlimited range 

 of grass land or pastures. They have so much range that 

 they cannot possibly eat the grass off. Many of the larger 

 farmers run dairy cattle on the same land to eat down the 

 pasture. The cows, however, are subsidiary to the chick- 

 ens. On one farm of some 200 acres with 5,000 hens, 

 some 40 Jersey cows were kept, some of them from the 

 most noted herds of the country. The owner, however, 



FURNISHES THE HEAT. THE CHICKS KEEP 

 FROM THE STOVE. 



informed me that the chickens had paid for the cows and 

 for the large dairy barn on the place. The skim milk 

 from the cows was used for the fowls. 



The poultrymen with the large farms are undoubtedly 

 handling the business at greater profit than those on 

 limited acreage nearer town. It may not seem reasonable 

 to say that the man with 5,000 hens on a farm of 100 

 acres, or even 200 acres, can get better results with the 

 same amount of labor by colonizing his hens all over the 

 farm, than the man with 20 acres and 5,000 hens. The 

 saving of steps by building houses close together doesn't 

 necessarily lessen the labor or reduce the cost of produc- 

 ing a dozen of eggs. It is a question largely of main- 

 taining the vigor and productive qualities of the fowls, 

 and where the acreage is so limited that the ground is 

 kept bare of vegetation the year around, and where the 

 ground is muddy in wet weather and hard and warm in 

 dry weather, the fowls are not under natural conditions; 

 the conditions are more favorable for loss of health or 

 vigor in the fowls. While poultrymen are making money 

 on small farms, it is uphill work compared with the 

 large farms. 



Feeding 



Some of the methods of housing may shock some of 

 our eastern poultry-keepers and poultry authorities. They 

 are likely to be further shocked at the Petaluma way of 

 feeding. For instance, how often do we read something 

 like this: "Don't give the hens much soft food in the 

 morning or they will 'lazy around' all day and get fat 

 and never lay. If soft food is fed at all, feed just as much 

 as the hens will clean up in ten minutes, and no more." 

 The Petaluma people do just the opposite. They feed a 

 soft food early in the morning and they give them enough 

 of it to last them till noon. The hens eat far more soft 

 food than whole grain, and yet they produce some eggs. 

 Now there are some poultrymen who do not feed this 

 way. Some feed dry food altogether, and some ring in 

 different combinations, but in this article I am writing of 



