60 FIRST LESSONS IN POULTRY KEEPING. 



Another point to consider in this connection is this: In housing poultry we have too often a 

 problem corresponding not to the housing of human families in roomy, detached dwellings, or 

 of a few domestic animals in ample barns or sheds, but to the housing of population in flats and 

 tenements, or to the provision for the health and comfort of human beings congregated in large 

 numbers as in schools, churches and public gatherings. 



The ventilation of a dwelling house is a comparatively easy matter. Under ordinary circum- 

 stances no attention need be given it but such as any sensible person will give almost instinct- 

 ively. But to maintain a supply of pure air and still keep up the temperature in a school room 

 where forty or h'fty pupils are kept for several consecutive hours, or in a church where 500 to 

 1,000 people are together for.an hour or two, requires more general knowledge of the principles 

 of heating and ventilation, and also special knowledge of their application to the existing con- 

 ditions; and it is for want of such knowledge in those in charge of such places that bad air in 

 an underventilated or drafts in an overventilated room make public places more productive of 

 colds than private dwellings. 



In the poultry house, as a rule, we find much the same conditions. Nearly every poultry 

 keeper either builds the smallest house possible for the number of fowls he intends to keep, or 

 having a building or buildings of certain dimensions stocks them to their fullest stated capacity 

 and sometimes away beyond. And if in anything different, the conditions are harder in the 

 poultry house, for the children in school are there for two relatively short periods; the people 

 at a public gathering are together in the same enclosure for only a short time, while the fowls 

 are often confined to the same restricted quarters day and night for months. To state the point 

 in its simplest form, the artificial methods of managing fowls often make housing an intricate 

 problem, when with more natural methods it would be a very simple one. 



It is for each poultry keeper to determine for himself what kind of problem in housing he 

 must work out, and after presenting in this lesson general information on poultry houses, 

 materials and construction, we will, in several consecutive lessons, describe houses adapted to 

 a variety of conditions ranging from the simplest to somewhat complex, but stopping quite a 

 long way from the limit in that direction. 



Methods of Housing Laying and Breeding Stock. 



In systems of housing adult fowls, we have at one extreme the colony plan, which, in its sim- 

 plest form, consists in placing small houses for flocks of a few dozen fowls far enough apart to 

 obviate the use of fences, and give the flocks free range with very little mingling of fowls 

 from different flocks; and, at the other extreme, a connected series of houses, each containing 

 many pens which connect each with the adjoining pens, or all open on covered walks running 

 the entire length of each house. In what we call the extreme type in this house arrangement, 

 the various accessory buildings of the plant are located in such manner, and so connected with 

 the poultry houses, as to make it possible to do all the work under cover. 



The number of possible plans and arrangements between these two extremes is unlimited. 

 To enumerate fully the common and familiar house plans would make quite a formidable look- 

 ing list. We will discuss here only a few of the most popular, the most useful, and the most 

 interesting plans and arrangements. Some of the latter class call for notice not because of the 

 merit of the plans, but because their features seem to appeal very strongly to novices in poultry 

 culture. 



We classify the houses we are to discuss, then, as follows: 



1. As to Position of Pens or Compartments. 



(a). SINGLE PEN HOUSES. 



Usually these are small houses, the ordinary one pen poultry house having a floor 



area of about 100 sq. ft., but sometimes they are large enough for flocks of 100 or 



more, with floor area of 500 to 1.000 sq. ft. 

 (b). Two (OR MORE) PEN HOUSES WITH CONNECTING PENS. 



This is the most common arrangement where a few small flocks are to kept in the 



same building. 



