CHAPTER IX. 



The Hen's House. 



Men build various kinds of houses for their own use. Some are con- 

 venient and comfortable; others are never satisfactory. If we study 100 

 desirable houses, we find that they all agree in one thing. They are 

 planned to meet the needs of people with definite habits and purposes. So 

 with poultry houses, the breed, conditions of feeding, climate, size of 

 flock and purse, and other matters which concern the owner alone must 

 be considered. Therefore, without trying to lay down any definite rules 

 for poultry house building we give suggestions from those who have 

 apparently solved the problem for their own conditions. 



THE ESSEN- 

 TIAL PRINCI- .- ^ ^-^ . ^-^^—^^ ,~^^ 

 PLES. — On the 

 White Leghorn 

 farm of White & 



Rice the following ^ 



rules of house - ,, -^^^^__„^^-,^„-, 



building are fol- 

 lowed. This farm biu. 19. WHITE & RICE'S HEN HOUSE, 

 is 30 miles north 

 of New York: 



"The three essentials in building a poultry house are comfort, con- 

 venience and cost, in their order. Comfort should be first, for the reason 

 if the hens are not comfortable no amount of work and feed can make 

 them lay in the Fall and Winter when the high prices of eggs make poultry 

 keeping so profitable. Then comes convenience. Have things just as 

 handy as you possibly can, for you will find when you keep a thousand 

 and more hens that having houses handy to feed, water and clean will 

 save many days' work in the course of a year. One hour a day means over 

 one month in a year. Last of all comes the bugbear of so many, cost. 

 Cost does not spell comfort or even convenience. There are many expen- 

 sive poultry houses that are both uncomfortable and unhandy. A hen nfieds 

 five square feet of floor space, and to keep her comfortable in cold weather 

 we must build the house low so she won't have to warm up an unnecessary 

 air space, but don't get it so low that you break your own head when 

 caring for the hens. Very good dimensions for a single house are 12 x 15 

 feet, seven feet high in front and four in the rear. 



"The floor should be raised six inches, with stones and a good cement 

 floor put on that, making it proof against dampness and rats, two of the 



