MAINE: AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 65 



house, while constructed after the most approved model of the 

 time, was never a satisfactory house for laying hens. For some 

 years it was used only for the keeping of surplus stock and for 

 carrying cockerels over the winter. Finally it was abandoned 

 entirely in favor of curtain-front houses to be described be- 

 low. 



THE ROOSTING-CLOSET HOUSE. 



Fourteen years ago one of the lo-foot square houses described 

 above was taken for a nucleus and an addition made, so that the 

 reconstructed house was 10 feet wide and 25 feet long. The in- 

 side end of the old house was taken out, so that there is one 

 room with a floor space of 250 square feet. The walls are 

 about 5 1-2 feet high in the clear inside of the building. The 

 whole of the front wall is not rilled in, but a space 3 feet wide 

 and 15 feet long is left just under the plate. This space had a 

 frame covered with white drilling, hinged at the top on the 

 inside, so that it could be let down and buttoned during driving 

 storms and winter nights, but hung up out of the way at all 

 other times. The cloth of the outer curtain was oiled with hot 

 linseed oil. The roost platform extended the whole length of 

 the back of the room. It was 3 feet 4 inches wide and 3 feet 

 above the floor. The back wall and up the roof for 4 feet was 

 lined and the space filled and packed hard with fine hay. The 

 packing also extended part way across the ends of the room. 



Two roosts were used, but they did not take the whole length 

 of the platform, a space of 4 feet at one end being reserved for 

 a crate where broody hens could be confined until the desire 

 for sitting was overcome. The space, from the front edge of 

 the platform up to the roof was covered by frame curtains 

 of drilling, similar to the one on the front wall, except that it 

 was not oiled. They were hinged at the top edge and kept 

 turned out of the way during the daytime, but from the com- 

 mencement of cold weather until spring they were closed down 

 every night after the hens went to roost. The hens were shut 

 in this close roosting closet and kept there during the night, and 

 were released as early in the morning as they could see to 

 scratch for grain which was sprinkled in the 8-inch deep straw 

 on the floor. 



