28 POULTRY FOR PROFIT 



while green food is grown in the large yards. After 

 the green food is up so that the birds cannot easily 

 kill it by eating at it, the flocks from the two houses 

 can be turned on it alternately. 



The Fruit and Poultry Farm 



Safest of all systems of poultry keeping in Cali- 

 fornia is the combination fruit and poultry ranch, 

 for the following reasons: 



1. Water is so scarce and so high priced in most 

 localities that it must be made to go as far as 

 possible. Where green crops must be raised for 

 chickens, little if any additional water is required 

 for deciduous trees. 



2. Manure is a valuable by-product of poultry 

 raising which ought not to be wasted, and it cannot 

 be more profitably used than in growing fruit. 



3. The trees furnish shade for poultry, and the 

 fowls in turn destroy insects and provide fertilizer 

 and cultivation. 



4. Instead of having his eggs "all in one basket" 

 the man with a combination ranch has them in two 

 or three. 



5. The droppings and other litter from the 

 houses keep up the supply of humus in the soil. 

 California fruit men must keep more stock of some 

 sort, and chickens are more available than cattle. 



On such a farm the work is most easily done if 

 the farm is divided into several fields, and the 

 chickens housed in portable houses which can be 

 moved from field to field as occasion requires. 



REQUIREMENTS OF A POULTRY HOUSE 



The natural habitat of fowls is the open air. The 

 jungle fowl roosted in a tree and foraged for its 

 living where it could get it. Obviously, these con- 



