104 



FIRST LESSONS IN POULTRY KEEPING. 



of these in the front of the shed, and took out the partition between roosting room and scratch- 

 ing shed, thus muking a scratching room house. But some few breeders of fine fowls, with 

 the object of keeping their fowls in the best possible condition, have gone back to what seems 

 to have been the original scratching shed idea, and used the closed part as any other closed 

 poultry house, making the open shed an additional protected outdoor privilege. Those who 

 have tried this way of handling breeding stock think it pays. 



Walks in Continuous Houses. 



The plans we have been discussing do not provide for a walk in the house. When a walk is 

 to be used the floor arrangement should be as in the accompanying diagrams. The first two 

 are for the ordinary closed house, and are identical except in position of the roosts. The third 

 shows how a scratching shed house is built with walk In the rear. On page 105 is reproduced 

 a diagram of such a scratching shed house built some ten years ago. As far as I recall now 

 this is the only house built on this plan I have seen. 



Houses are sometimes built with the walk in front of the pens. I have seen but one such, 

 and have seen descriptions of only one or two others. The plan does not commend itself to 

 many poultry keepers. The sun and light have not such ready access to the pens, and the walk 

 has to be elevated to allow the fowls to pass under it to the yards in front of the building. We 

 may consider this arrangement as warranted only by peculiar and insurmountable conditions. 



Doing the Work From the Walk. 



A number of continuous houses, both short and long, have been planned to do all work from 

 the walk, with the roosts placed as in the second diagram, the nests under the droppings 

 % boards, and the feed troughs either below the nests or in the passage and accessible to fowls 

 standing under the nests. Not many who have arranged this way will build after that pattern 

 a second time. In 



The Passing of the Continuous House. 



The continuous house plan in its extreme developments was a fad. Men seemed to vie with 

 each other in building long houses. From buildings 100 to 150 or at most about 200 ft. in 

 length they went to in one case, as uiy memory serves, about 600 ft. The shorter buildings 

 answered their purpose very well. The very long ones, as a rule, were on plants that failed, 

 and these unwieldy buildings clearly had something to do with the failure. 



Just at present there is reaction against intensive methods, and with it inevitably goes a lack 

 of interest .in continuous house plans which may easily be carried too far. In the preliminary 

 remarks on this lesson I tried to show how and where the continuous house plan can be used to 

 best advantage, and is superior to separate houses. In considering house plans, as in nearly all 

 matters relating to poultry keeping, we will find it best not to commit ourselves unqualifiedly 

 to any one idea. 



