FO UL TR T- CRAFT. 23 



CHAPTER III. 



Poultry Houses and Yards. 



27. General Remarks. It is important that fowls be properly housed. 

 This can be accomplished without using elaborate or expensive buildings. A 

 poultry house should be free from drafts, so constructed that the inner 

 temperature will vary slowly with fluctuations in the weather. The windows 

 should be so placed that the sun will shine into the house for a few hours 

 daily, in winter, the longer the better. These things, and a suitable 

 situation, are essential. The permanent lack of any one of them invariably 

 affects the health of the fowls, sooner or later bringing disease and loss. A 

 house furnishing the conditions essential to the welfare of its tenants may be 

 unsightly to the eye, inconvenient for the attendant, yet cannot be regarded as 

 unsuitable for fowls. A person is sometimes so situated that if he would have 

 a few fowls he must make shift to keep them in quarters not specially suited to 

 poultry keeping. If the essential conditions specified can be secured, the 

 fowls can do very well. If the conditions named cannot be secured, it is better 

 not to try to keep poultry. The inconveniences incident to caring for fowls in 

 makeshift and poorly planned houses are matters of small moment to the 

 amateur who gives his fowls but little of his time. To one who keeps fowls 

 on an increasing scale such inconveniences soon become costly annoyances, 

 and the buildings, often, must be completely remodeled. It is therefore 

 always best for a poultryman to consider carefully before beginning to build 

 or to make alterations ; and a beginner, particularly, should make himself so 

 familiar with the principles of poultry house construction, the different styles 

 of houses, the methods of platting poultry plants, that whatever the scale of his 

 future operations, each building erected may be built to stand many years 

 without alteration and without other repairs than those made necessary by the 

 ordinary wear and tear of weather and daily use. Nearly all the designs given 

 in this chapter are modeled after, or adapted from, plans used and approved 

 by practical poultrymen. (The exceptions merit attention, embodying as they 

 do some ideas approved by the experience of poultry keepers, though not yet 

 tested). The buildings described have been selected as furnishing typical 

 examples of different styles of poultry houses. As a comparison of the plans 

 will show, many of the details may be applied in any or all the various styles 

 of houses. The greatest possible variety has been introduced in the minor 

 details of the drawings, to avoid an unnecessary multiplication of illustrations. 

 Having selected the style of house which suits him best, anyone intelligent 

 enough to build a poultry house can adapt to it such minor features of other 



