This house (see figure 6) is intended to accommodate forty breed- 

 ing fowls. Its dimensions are ioxi6 feet. The roof as will be seen 

 is double pitched. The ridge is 12 feet from the front. The height 

 of the house at the front is 3 '2 feet, at the ridge 8 feet, at the back 

 5 feet. There is a single window in the west end, which Mr. Tolman 

 regards as important to insure access of sunlight to the extreme rear 

 of the house, roosts and dropping board. 



Mr. Tolman is also using a house of similar general proportions, 

 14x24 feet in size. He states that this accommodates one hundred 

 fowls and that the results obtained in its use are extremely 

 satisfactory. 



Wherever chickens are reared in considerable 

 Housing Growing numbers the problem of housing and a suitable 

 Stock. range are important. The brooder house 



heated by hot water or steam pipes is satisfac- 

 tory as long as the chicks are small and they can be cared for more 

 cheaply in such houses than in separate lamp heated brooders but 

 there are many who will feel unable to make the investment nec- 

 essary to put up and heat such a house. For such the experience 

 and suggestions of the Maine Experiment Station will prove valuable. 



Maine Portable Brooder House.* 



" Portable brooder houses of several different sizes and styles of 

 construction are in use, sufficient to accommodate 2000 chickens to 

 maturity. The style of house that has proved most satisfactory with 

 us, is here described. 



Each of the houses accommodates 125 or 150 chicks from the 

 time brooding commences until they are moved into winter quarters. 

 They are large enough so the necessary work can be done comfort- 

 ably in them. During rainy days, when the birds must be kept 

 indoors, there is room for them, and they will not suffer seriously if 

 the floors are generously covered with cut clover or chaff. The 

 birds in them are safe at night from storms, and all thieves that 

 walk on four feet, crawl, or fly. They are built on shoes so that they 

 can be drawn near together for convenience in the brooding season, 

 during April, May and June, and then to the grass fields for the 

 range season. 



*Bullefin 144, Maine Agricultural Experiment Station. 



