188 THE PEOPLE'S PRACTICAL POULTRY BOOK. 



or seven hundred on the place. These are placed two hundred feet apart, 

 each way, thus isolating one lot from the other. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSES. 



These houses are very cheap aifairs, and are made by erecting two forked 

 posts, eight feet long, and distant from each other fifteen feet. On these 

 rests the ridge-pole. On both sides of the centre-post, ten feet distant, a 

 trench is dug, a foot in depth. Then small poles are placed for rafters, one 

 end in the trench and the other tied to the ridge-pole, two feet apart. Then 

 another set of poles, tied crossways, also two feet equi-distant, and the frame 

 work is complete. ' This is covered over with thatch, which is found in plentiful 

 abundance, and to be had for the cutting. The only frame work about the 

 house is the doors at the ends, both of which are four by six, and contain 

 each a window, pivoted in the centre of the sash, to be opened or shut as the 

 requirements of ventilation demand. Each house has its complement of 

 twenty boxes, for laying, placed under the eaves, and partly concealed by 

 bundles of straw. 



BUILDING FOR STORING GRAIN, EGGS, HATCHING AND SICK ROOMS, ETC. 



Near the family residence is a large building, devoted to the storing of 

 grain and eggs ; a nursery for sick hens ; a long room for hatching, and 

 .another for slaughtering purposes. In the sick room is arranged a series of 

 boxes, each one large enough for the comfort and convenience of its solitary 

 occupant, who is there placed, and treated for its malady with as much care 

 as if its value was dollars instead of cents, and with such skill that the ratio 

 of deaths has been only one in two hundred and eighty. 



THE SITTING DEPARTMENT. 



is also provided with boxes, some three hundred in number. Here all are 

 brought, from their respective coops, as soon as their incubating propensity 

 sows itself, and placed upon their quota of eggs. Feed, water, and a large 

 supply of sand and ashes, are provided, and the sitting hen not allowed to 

 leave the room until she takes her young brood with her. 



HOW THE CLUTCHES ARE DOUBLED UP. 



The clutches are then " doubled up," that is, two broods given to one 

 hen, and the chickenless one sent back to her coop to resume her egg laying. 

 As soon as the young chicks are discarded by their mother they are taken to 

 their future home, fifty in each lot, and the old ones back to their respective 

 localities. 



HOW THE FOWLS ARE FED. 



The fowls are fed three times per day, and their diet so*, arranged as to 

 always present a variety, although oats is their staple article of food, and 

 always before them in unlimited quantity. To-day, it will be indian-meal, 

 made into a stiff dough, and given hot; to-morrow, barley; next day, boiled 



