108 OUR DOMESTIC BIRDS 



INTENSIVE POULTRY FARMS 



Reasons for concentration. In the early days of the poultry 

 fancy in this country the tendency was for each fancier to keep 

 as many different varieties as he could find room for or could 

 afford to buy. Most of these fanciers were city people who 

 thought that, as they kept their fowls in small flocks anyway, 

 they might just as well have as many different kinds of poultry 



FIG. 108. Colony houses in foreground ; sheds for ducks beyond. (Photograph 

 from Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture) 



as they had separate compartments in their poultry yards. When 

 rich men with large estates became interested in fancy poultry, 

 they usually built large houses containing many small pens, each 

 with its small yard, and bought a few of each known variety. 

 By far the greater part of the choicest poultry was kept in small 

 inclosures, and the flocks that laid remarkably well were usually 

 city flocks that were given good care. This seemed to a great 

 many people to prove that fowls did not need the room and 

 the freedom which for ages they had enjoyed on farms, and 

 that the limit of the possible extension of the city method of 



