CHAPTER III 



Houses for Commercial Laying Flocks 



Advantages of Curtain-Front and Open-Front Houses for Laying Flocks Muslin Curtains the Best Known Means of 

 Securing Good Ventilation Without Discomfort to Fowls Plans for Building Single Compartment 

 Houses at Moderate Cost Suggestions for Special Low-Cost Construction. 



curtains hooked up and doors between sheds and p 

 open. When it begins to freeze at night, close the cur- 

 tains in front of the sfieds, but still leave doors between 

 pens and sheds open. These doors (including slide door), 

 are never closed excepting on nights of severe cold, 

 say five to twenty degrees above zero; for zero nights 

 close all doors and windows, also the curtains in front 

 of roosts. To keep the fowls enclosed when the curtains 

 are raised, cover the front of shed with wire netting. The 

 doors from sheds to pens swing into the pens and are, 

 of course, out of the way of the curtains." 



The Maine Station Hotise 



While conditions in scratching-shed houses were 

 greatly improved as compared with those of the closed- 

 front type, poultrymen were not long in discovering that 



HE type of house commonly described by the term 



"open-front" is generally conceded to be best 



suited to the requirements of the laying flock and 



is now used, almost exclusively, by practical poul- 

 try keepers in all parts of the world, from the tropics to 

 the far north. When properly designed and constructed, 

 such houses are dry and comfortable, affording the great- 

 est degiee of warmth that can be secured without re- 

 stricting ventilation to an injurious extent. Ventilation 

 may readily and quickly be adjusted to meet changing 

 weather conditions, and the houses are simple and com- 

 paratively inexpensive in construction. 



The term "open-front," in common usage, is applied 

 indiscriminately to all houses having extensive openings 

 in the front wall, whether provided with muslin shutters 

 or curtains, or protected simply by means of wire net- 

 ting. The great majority of these 

 houses, however, have muslin cur- 

 tains or shutters for additional pro- 

 tection in severe cold or storms, and 

 it will be less confusing to speak of 

 such as "curtain-front" houses, re- 

 serving "open-front" for the type of 

 house having no such protection. 



The Scratching Shed House 



The curtain-front house was devel- 

 oped as the direct result of efforts to 

 find some means of overcoming the 

 serious objections to the old-style, 

 warm, glass-front houses, to which 

 reference is made on page 5. Dur- 

 ing the transition period a type pIQ 53 NEW ENGLAND SCRATCHING SHED HOUSE FORE-RUNNER OF 

 known as the scratching-shed house THE MODERN CURTAIN-FRONT HOUSE 



attained some measure of popularity, 



chiefly in New England States. It had 'some advantages the close, poorly ventilated roosting room had little prac- 

 over the older type, but it was soon replaced by the cur- tical value and in use proved to be only an added compli- 



tain-front house. One of the best of these houses is 

 illustrated in Fig. 58, and is thus described by the de- 

 signer, the veteran A. F. Hunter: 



"The plans here given are for a continuous poultry 



cation as well as a needless expense. From this it was 

 only a short step to the general type of house now in 

 common use. 



No single individual can lay claim to having given the 



house with alternating pens and sheds, the sheds having poultry world the open-front or curtain-front house, 



curtained fronts and all the space within the house being However, one of the first houses of this type was built 



utilized by the fowls. Each combined pen and shed is 18 at the Maine Experiment Station, and it served for years 



by 10 feet, the shed being 10 by 10 feet and the closed as a model for others in all parts of the country. This 



roosting pen being 8 by 10 feet, affording room sufficient 

 for 25 fowls of the American or 30 of the Mediterranean 

 varieties. No walk is required, because the walk is 



house is illustrated in Fig. 59. The following descrip- 

 tion of it is condensed from a Maine Station Bulletin: 

 "This building was erected in 1903 and is 14 feet wide 



through gates and doors, from shed to pen and pen to an( j 150 f ee t long. The back wall is 5 feet 6 inches high 



shed, and so on to the end of the house. 



from floor to top of plate inside, and the front wall is 6 



"The ventilation (so much desired) is varied, and can feet 9 inches high. The roof is of unequal span, the ridge 



be adapted to the different seasons in half-a-dozen dif- being 4 feet from the front wall. The height of the ridge 



ferent ways. In summer the doors and windows are all above the floor is 9 feet. The sills are 4 by 6 inches and 



wide open and the curtains' are hooked up against the rest on a rough stone wall laid on the surface of the 



roof out of the way. (It is understood that the doors be- ground. A central sill gives support to the floor, which 



tween two pens are never left open; they are always kept at times is quite heavily loaded with sand. The floor 



closed except when opened for the attendant to pass timbers are 2 by 8 inches and are placed two feet apart, 



through.) When the nights begin to be real frosty in the The floor is two thicknesses of hemlock boards. All of 



fall, close the windows in front of pens, but leave shed the rest of the frame is of 2 by 4-inch stuff. The building 



