104 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Mr. Rankin. We feed gluten meal in our common ra- 

 tion. I should not care to feed it exclusively to very 

 young chickens. It has a tendency to bring out a high 

 color in the skin of the chicken. 



Question. What is the best and cheapest hen house for 

 a farmer with one hundred hens ? 



Mr. CusHMAN. For the specialist I suppose the long hen 

 house with an aisle on the back is an excellent plan. My 

 preference to lessen labor and risk is colony houses scat- 

 tered about the place. I believe in larger flocks than a 

 great many advocate if kept in that way. My preference 

 would be to have two liuildings for one hundred hens, and 

 have it so they could range about the building. It would 

 make a difierence what breed was kept. If Rhode Island 

 Reds, I should prefer two buildings, the simpler the better. 

 A large poultryman whom I know spends about fifteen dol- 

 lars on a house. He builds them not very tight, they are 

 not shingled; the roofs are of boards, battened; there is a 

 door on the south ; no floor ; filled to the sills with earth, 

 to have it higher that the surrounding land. He keeps from 

 twenty to forty hens in each house. He does not get the 

 profit that a great many do who have yards. He has one 

 hundred such houses on his place, and has conducted the 

 business on that plan for a great many years, at least ten. 

 The average farmer, I believe, will do best to follow that 

 plan, rather than be obliged to do so much work every day. 

 Most of the farm poultrymen I have seen neglect to attend 

 to all the details. 



A great many put too much glass into the houses. I 

 think a house the longest from north to south, and facing 

 the south with a glass in the south side, and an ordinary 

 door, and the depth of the house extending back, so the 

 fowls will roost in the back the greatest possible distance 

 from the window and the door, is a very good house. I do 

 not think if I were to build a house I would build dropping 

 boards. Build the roosts in such a way that the droppings 

 will fall on the floor. By putting a little board edgeways 

 in front of the roosts and throwing dirt or plaster on the 

 ground every little while, I believe you would be much 

 better off" than to have the dropping board under the roost. 



