104 POULTRY CULTURE 



Principal requirements in comfortable shelters for poultry. 



Poultry require fresh air, sunlight, dryness, and room. Of these 

 by far the most important is fresh air. The essential condition of 

 dryness depends much upon free circulation of fresh air. Air and 

 sunlight are nature's best disinfectants and germicides, and if a coop 

 or house is not overcrowded, and the birds are in normal, healthy 

 condition, a properly aired and sunned structure requires much less 

 attention to cleanliness than one that is deficient in these particulars. 



Warmth is not a requisite in a house for birds whicJi are well- 

 feathered, healthy, and have no tender appendages, as large combs 

 and wattles. For unfeathered young birds the quarters must be 

 heated artificially, or so arranged that the heat thrown off by 

 the birds, supplementing the heat of their bodies, will keep the 

 temperature high enough to prevent chilling, while fresh air is 

 still admitted in sufficient quantities. The latter requirement is the 

 theory on which all so-called warm houses have been constructed. 

 The point to be noted is that the unfeathered birds must have 

 warmth, while the more mature stock does not require it. All these 

 points will come out more clearly as the history of modern ideas 

 in construction is briefly sketched in succeeding paragraphs. 



Earliest form of shelter for poultry. An empty barrel (coop), 

 still often used and recommended for a hen and brood, or for a nest 

 for large birds (as the turkey and goose), was in all probability 

 the first form of poultry shelter. Aside from the interesting fact 

 that the adaptation of barrels to such uses gave us the name now 

 used for a small shelter or inclosure, especially for poultry, the 

 early and continued use of the barrel to shelter poultry has peculiar 

 significance to the student of the subject because, though a make- 

 shift with some features which would not be reproduced in a 

 structure designed for poultry, the barrel placed on its side pre- 

 sents in a primitive way what are now recognized as the first 

 principles in poultry-house construction : sufficient shelter, perfect 

 ventilation, and height appropriate to the size of the creatures 

 which are to inhabit it. The use of the barrel is necessarily limited 

 to a few purposes and a small number of individuals. 



Simplest form of shelter made for poultry. The familiar style 

 of coop called the A-shaped coop, or tent coop, in which we have 

 shelter provided at the minimum expense for materials and labor, 



