120 



OUR DOMESTIC BIRDS 



the care required to make good exhibition birds usually want 

 to give their own birds all the time they can spare for work 

 with poultry. 



So it happens that, after a few years' experience in keeping fine 

 fowls in close quarters, an amateur fancier almost always wants 

 to move to a farm where he can grow more and better chickens. 

 A small farm near a city suits the average fancier best, be- 

 cause, when so situated, he can continue his regular work and 



Fig. 117. Yards of a small poultry fancier 



look after his poultry in leisure time. Fanciers generally use 

 houses with many pens under one roof, because, even when 

 they have only one variety, the different matings must be kept 

 separate during the breeding season, the adult males must be 

 kept separate at all times, and valuable hens cannot be kept in 

 large flocks except when damage to plumage may be remedied 

 before they are to be exhibited or sold. A fancier will keep 

 only five or six birds, and sometimes only two or three, where 

 a utility poultry keeper would keep a dozen. If the yards con- 

 necting with the pens in the houses are small, he will arrange 



