164 POULTRY FOR PROFIT 



breakage. Professor Graham of the Massachusetts 

 experiment station recommends a nest 16x24 inches. 

 This is large enough to permit several hens to go on 

 at the same time, and he has found that it reduces 

 the number of cracked and broken eggs to a mini- 

 mum. 



Some experiment stations recommend the nest 

 with a bottom of wire cloth as being more easily 

 kept clean from mites. Others prefer a nest in 

 which the sides rest upon the bottom without being 

 nailed, so that they may be lifted off and the bottom 

 thoroughly cleaned. This could only be managed by 

 having sides which extended but few inches above 

 the bottom, leaving an opening above where the hens 

 could crawl from nest to nest. 



Hens like a nest that is rather dark and secluded, 

 and it is absolutely necessary that all nests be kept 

 clean. 



HOMEMADE CONVENIENCES 



While it is true that the commercial poultry keeper 

 and the large breeder must have the best equipment, 

 and enough of it, it is also true that the farmer and 

 the side-line poultryman can often manage without 

 putting very much money into equipment. A little 

 ingenuity will devise brooders that are quite as good 

 as the patent sort, and sometimes better. 



In a backyard plant I saw 300 White Wyandotte 

 chicks, just out of the incubator, being cared for in 

 a clever modification of the Philo brooder. The coops 

 used were the regular Philo coops, all facing south. 

 Half of the top was covered with cheesecloth, and 

 about half the other end with wire, leaving a space 

 in the middle for the Philo brooder, which was un- 

 covered except for a six-pane window sash. The 

 sash extended far enough beyond the sides of the 



