WITH 4200 HENS 17 



As to the size of the yard, no set rule can be given. 

 If you were building a house 50 feet long, in which you 

 will keep 500 hens, your best plan would be to have one 

 yard in front of the house and one in back. On this 

 plan if each yard were 30 feet deep and the length of the 

 house, 50 feet, the hens would do nicely on it if the soil 

 was reasonably loose and open. If it suited the shape 

 of your land better, you might have a yard the length 

 of the house and say 100 feet deep, divided in the center. 

 Then again you might have the 30x50 yard in front of the 

 house and one of the same size at either end. You will 

 see later how our yards are arranged. 



Planning the Plant 



In selecting your land, avoid a hilly, steeply sloping lo- 

 cation if you can. You can lay out a plant on anything 

 short of straight up and down but it is a much harder 

 problem and the assistance of an expert, practical poul- 

 tryman is almost necessary to do it successfully. A long, 

 narrow tract is harder to lay out than one oblong or near- 

 ly square. If long enough and narrow enough you will 

 walk yourself to death unless you install a tram car or use 

 a motor car. 



The number of hens that can be kept on a given space 

 is a question involving many problems and one that is 

 asked us almost as frequently as "what do you feed your 

 hens?" In attempting to answer it jwe must first of all 

 agree that we will give the hens yards; the writer can- 

 not hazard an opinion otherwise as he does not favor 

 the no-yard idea. On this basis it is reasonable to count 

 on 1000 hens to the acre with a minimum of 5 acres, or 



