76 



POULTRY HOUSES AND FIXTURES 



FIG. 145 COMBINATION PIPE HEATED AND COLONY HOVER 



BROODING HOUSE 

 Photo furnished by J. W. Parks. 



door opens into a passageway Z 1 /? feet wide and sunk so 

 that the floor is three feet below the main floor of the 

 house. The coil of hot water pipes, consisting of six lines 

 of 1%-inch pipe, is enclosed in a wooden box underneath 

 the floor of the house. Each compartment is provided 

 with a hover, which is heated by means of warmed air, 

 which is admitted from the pipe box to the hover chamber 

 through hot air flues suitably located in the floor under 

 the hover. This part of the house is divided into 15 pens, 

 each four feet wide and having a normal brooding capac- 

 ity of about 100 chicks, or 1,500 in all. 



The back part of the house, which is separated from 

 the front by an open partition of wire and boards, is di- 

 vided into five compartments, each equipped with a coal- 

 burning colony hover. In cold weather, with the water 

 heater in operation, the temperature of the entire house 

 is made comfortable, and the colony hovers are more 

 easily operated and regulated to the correct brooding tem- 

 perature, thus protecting the chicks from extreme changes 

 in room temperature that often occur with this method of 

 brooding when something goes wrong with the regulating 

 device or the supply of fuel. Operating cclony hovers in 

 a partially heated house also reduces the danger of floor 

 drafts, which are especially liable to exist when the out- 

 side temperature is quite low. 



In ordinary operation Mr. Parks uses the colony 



hover pens for his market or utility 

 chicks, while his best stock the blue- 

 blooded chicks that are to have the 

 most favorable conditions possible, 

 are brooded in the hot water heated 

 compartments. In writing regarding 

 these two systems and their respec- 

 tive merits, Mr. Parks says: 



"I like the pipe system better. 1 

 have about as good success with one 

 as with the other and the pipe sys- 

 tem is more expensive than the other 

 on account of the greater labor re- 

 quired for caring for small flocks oi 

 chicks, also because of the larger in- 

 vestment in equipment. But to get 

 best results chicks should be brooded 

 in comparatively small flocks; more- 

 over, chicks brooded under a colony hover should all be 

 of the same age, and as we do not get as many as 500 

 chicks of our best matings that we can brood together, 

 it is necessary to have the smaller compartments of the 

 pipe-heated system to care for them. 



"Colony hovers no doubt are the cheapest for brood- 

 ing chicks in large numbers. It takes some skill, however, 

 to handle .colony hover chicks after they are ten days old, 

 when, if not carefully handled, they are liable to get 

 switched into corners where they crowd and sweat instead 

 of gathering in a loose open ring under the hover or dome, 

 as they should. In hot weather, also, there is some trouble 

 keeping the fire low enough without having it go out. 

 You will see from this that I use both methods and find 

 both necessary to best results under my conditions. My 

 brooding losses the past two years have not been much 

 more by one method than the other. Have had as few as 

 ten lost at four weeks out of a lot of 500, though, of 

 course, not all lots do so well." 



The door of this house is at end opposite the one 

 shown in Fig. 145, and opens into a sunken passageway 

 back of the pipe-heated hover system. The ground in 

 front of the pens is graded up to the sills so that the 

 chicks can pass readily from house pens to yards without 

 the use of special board inclines. 



FIG. 146 REAR ELEVATION OF SINGLE PEN 

 COLONY HOVER HOUSE 



From blue print furnished by Poultry Division of U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture. 



FIG. 147 FRONT ELEVATION OF SINGLE PEN 



COLONY HOVER HOUSE 



From blue print furnished by Poultry Division of U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture. 



