FIItST LESSONS IN POULTEY KEEPING. 



123 



arrangements designed to prevent crowding on the roosts have been devised and reported as 

 highly satisfactory, but these rarely take with any but the inventors. In fact, I could not now 

 name a single one that had gained any popularity. There is rarely serious crowding on the 

 roosts if roost room is ample and the roosts on a level. Give fowls an allowance of a foot, or 

 quite that, of roost room each, and you will have little trouble with crowding. As hens sit 

 close on the roost they don't occupy so much room, but some allowance must be made for 

 opportunity to shift positions and get up and down. 



Feed Troughs, Boxes and Hoppers. 



Most of the feed troughs used are very simple. The accompanying cut shows cross sections 

 of the styles most commonly used. The V-shaped trough and the single trough with low 



straight sides are oftenest seen, but I think the double 

 reversible trough with straight sides is the best of all. Its 

 superiority is marked on a large plant. 



Many different patterns of troughs have been devised to 

 keep the fowls out of the troughs and to keep them from 

 crowding while feeding. Some of these are shown in 

 accompanying illustrations. I have used a good many such 

 troughs, but went back for good long ago to the open 

 troughs as much easier to feed in. 



I discovered accidentally a few years ago that it was 

 much easier to feed fowls in short wide troughs than in 

 long narrow ones. I needed some additional troughs, and 

 being pressed for time, thought I would make shift for 

 awhile with a few of the shallow boxes in which small 

 potted plants are sold, which I happened to have on hand. 

 These boxes are about a foot wide and 16 to 18 in. long, 

 the sides being about 2 in. high. I allow one such box to 

 8 or 10 fowls, and find that with the boxes a few feet apart 

 I can throw or drop mash into them from a spoon or shake 

 it from the pail much easier than into narrow troughs, and 

 do it so quickly that the flock is fed before the crowding 

 begins. I am still using some of these boxes and some nar- 

 row troughs, and the advantage of the wide short trough 

 seems as plain as ever. Though I have not tried it, I think 

 a box a foot square would answer for just as many hens as 

 the oblong boxes I have. Occasionally when feeding a flock 



of chicks I find that they 

 have outgrown their trough 

 accommodations. I give 

 them some mash i n t h e 

 earthen saucers I use for 

 water, if those happen to be 



empty, and I notice that nearly half as many 

 chicks as are pushing and crowding around a 

 trough three or four feet long, will feed com- 

 fortably and quietly in a circle around an 8 in. 

 saucer. The reason is easy to discover if you 

 watch the chicks for a few minutes. At a long 

 '. trough the fowls and chicks are constantly chang-^ 

 ing positions. At a short box or round pan all" 

 the food is within reach of all the fowls about it 

 at the same time, and there is no inducement to 

 Protected Feed Troughs. move. 



Sometimes the feed trough is attached at one end by a hinge to the wall of the house, and 

 when not in use is raised and secured in position against the wall. The advantage of this is not 



Cross Sections of Feed Troughs. 

 A v-shaped trough, a board fixed on 

 edge to keep fowls out of trough. B 

 shallow box trough. C double or 

 reversible box trough. 



