MANAGEMENT OF FOWLS 87 



Usually a flock of fifty hens needs a house with a floor surface 

 of about 2 50 sq.ft. This is obtained in a house i6ft. square 

 or in a house 12 ft. x 24 ft. A house 20 ft. square is about right 

 for seventy-five or eighty hens, and is not badly overcrowded if 

 one hundred medium-sized birds are put into it. If an oblong 

 building is preferred, a house 12 ft. wide by 42 ft. long gives 

 one hundred birds 5 sq. ft. of floor space per bird. Houses of 



FIG. 84. Good poultry house on a Kansas farm. (Photograph from Bureau of 

 Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture) 



such size should be from 4 ft. to 7 ft. high at the sides, and 

 from 7 ft. to 10 ft. high at the highest point of the roof, 

 according to the style of construction. 



Feeding. In the feeding of a farm flock the first thing to 

 consider is what the birds can pick up by foraging. The 

 poultry keeper on a farm, even more than the poultry keeper 

 elsewhere, should make it a rule to do nothing for poultry that 

 thev can do for themselves. Fowls can do more for themselves 



