SANITATION 31 



duces nearly one hundred pounds of manure per 

 year, the importance of the yards as a factor in 

 the spread of disease is seen to be very great. 



The problem of having clean (non-infected) 

 yards for poultry can be solved only by a change 

 of grounds from time to time. As mentioned here- 

 tofore, the movable poultry house offers many 

 sanitary advantages. Plowing or spading a yard, 

 thus exposing surface layers of the soil to the dis- 

 infecting action of the sunshine, and keeping the 

 birds off it for a season, offers the most practical 

 means of disinfecting it. 



Where the construction of the poultry buildings 

 are such as preclude a change of location, the two- 

 yard system can in most cases be installed. It 

 offers many advantages : while one yard is being 

 used, the other may be plowed and a crop grown. 

 This may be a crop upon which the birds may be 

 turned for half an hour each evening to allow them 

 a feed of green forage. 



In any system of yards where the area of the 

 grounds is small for the number of birds, the yard 

 should receive frequent attention at the hands of 

 the cleaner. If the yard is grassed, and the grass 

 is short, it should be swept weekly, gathering the 

 manure in piles and carting it away, as street 

 cleaners do. A yard that is bare of vegetation 

 can be cleaned in the same way, even more easily 

 and effectually. This will lengthen the ^^ sanitary 

 hfe'' of a yard to many times its duration without 

 such cleaning. 



Immediately surrounding the poultry house 

 there should be a strip of gravel on which the 

 birds may be fed, and on which they will spend 

 much of their time, to the very great saving in 

 contamination of the yard. The feeding ground, 



