190 POULTRY BREEDING AND MANAGEMENT 



Keeping large flocks in a long, stationary house requires 

 less time for the feeding and caring for the fowls than in 

 portable houses scattered widely apart over the farm. It 

 does not necessarily follow, however, that the advantages in 

 this regard are all in favor of the long, stationary house. 

 The profit in the business does not hinge altogether or 

 mainly on the convenience of the attendant or on the 

 amount of time necessary to do the actual work in feeding 

 and caring for the fowls. The final result must hinge rather 

 on the results or on the returns in egg yield from a given 

 amount of labor. 



The portable house and free-range system is most con- 

 ducive to health and vigor in the stock, and in the long 

 run the financial results must be decided in favor of the 

 system most favorable to vigor. A man may care for more 

 fowls in a long, stationary house than under the free-range 

 colony house system, but in a series of years will there be 

 greater return in egg yield from his labor than from the 

 labor of the man who keeps his fowls under the exten- 

 sive free-range system? The greater risk from loss of 

 vigor, from death, from contagious disease, from lower 

 fertility of eggs, and greater mortality in the chicks makes 

 it certain that in ten years, more or less, there will be a 

 greater return from the labor on the colony free-range 

 farm. 



It is possible that under certain conditions of soil and 

 climate the long, stationary house system may be successful 

 for a long term, such as in sections of maximum sunshine 

 and on porous soils. The sunshine will ward off many 

 bacterial diseases which would be more common where there 

 is not very much sunshine. Again, in a very porous soil, 

 soil contamination has not the same dangers as in heavy 

 clay soils. The poultryman who uses stationary houses and 

 follows the intensive system must utilize to the utmost tho 



