420 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



minimum allowance of yard room per fowl considered safe. 

 The result is, that in nearlj^ every case the yards, while suf- 

 ficient if breeding pens of a few fowls each are kept in them, 

 are entirely inadequate when the compartments of the house 

 are stocked, as they usually are, to their full capacity. 



The truth is that the parts of the system do not fit. The 

 amount of yard room needed to keej) fowls so that the poul- 

 tryman can save on his labor cannot be had in connection 

 with the pens in the long houses which are the principal 

 feature of the intensive system. As the farmer who cannot 

 let his poultry have free range must have yards, the obvious 

 thing for him to do is to lay out and proportion his yards 

 according to the size of his flocks, limit the total of fowls 

 kept to the capacity of the land availalile for yards, make 

 the houses of such dimensions as are required, and place 

 them singly or in pairs, where they can be most conveniently 

 reached by the attendant when making the rounds of the 

 place. 



This has been done here and there ; but many who ought 

 to use such a method have never given any attention to it, 

 and quite a number who have been interested in it as they 

 saw the system in satisfactory use have hesitated to adopt it 

 for themselves, because the}' are reluctant to give up the 

 compact, continuous-house plan, and because they think they 

 cannot aftord the expense of fencing large yards. 



When large yards are used, the houses need not be very 

 far apart. If, instead of a yard 18 feet wide by 75 to 150 

 feet long, which is about the way the yards range for a style 

 of house which is (]uite common, and is usually rated as hav- 

 ing a capacity of 25 to 30 fowls in each of its 10 by 18 feet 

 sections, we make a yard two or three times as wide, the 

 house arrangement would be either a se})arate house for each 

 yard, or two-section houses placed so that the division fences 

 between the yards with which the respective compartments 

 connected would be on a line with the partition through the 

 middle of the house. 



Suppose we have yards 3(5 feet wide and 150 feet long; 

 this will generally give ample yard room for 25 or 30 hens. 

 If the lay of the land is such that the yard cannot be 150 



