MANAGEMENT OF FOWLS 107 



thoroughly cleaned. (They may not have been cleaned before 

 for six months or a year.) If a house is to be moved to a new 

 location, the change is usually made at this time. One or two 

 cartloads of clean sand are put into each house, to make the 

 floor higher than the ground outside and to provide an absorbent 

 for the droppings which are allowed to accumulate. When they 

 are brought to the house, which will probably be their home as 

 long as they live, the pullets are confined to the house, or 

 a small temporary yard is attached to it, so that they cannot 

 wander away. After a few days of confinement they accept the 

 new home as their headquarters. 



Adaptability of the colony system. The colony system as 

 developed in Rhode Island attracted little attention elsewhere 

 until very recent years. Since about 1900 many descriptions of 

 it have been published, and numerous efforts have been made 

 to adapt features of this system to operations in other localities. 

 The principal obstacles to this are snow and predacious animals. 

 Where snow lies deep for months it is not practical to keep 

 fowls in widely distributed flocks in winter. In some places the 

 plan of distributing the houses in summer and parking them 

 (that is, placing them close together in a regular order) in 

 winter has worked very well. Where wild animals are numerous, 

 colony methods cannot be extensively applied, but on most farms 

 a limited application of the system will greatly increase the 

 amount of poultry that can profitably be kept. 



In England many farmers use smaller colony houses than 

 those in use in Rhode Island, and move them often, not letting 

 a house stand in the same spot long enough to kill the grass. 

 Some of the houses used in this way are provided with small 

 wheels. The advantage of moving houses often is greatest 

 when the fowls are on good arable land, upon which there are, 

 or will be, crops that can utilize the manure which the birds 

 leave on the land. If the houses are moved methodically, the 

 fertilizer will be evenly distributed. 



