CHAPTER III. 



HOUSING. 



Before attempting to build a poultry house first consider the 

 purposes for which the house is intended, the size of the flock it is to 

 accommodate, and the cost of its erection. Is it to house a pen of 

 breeders, is it intended for a laying house, is it to be used on a large 

 egg farm, is it to be used as a colony house, or is it intended as a 

 sort of general purpose house? Consider these facts, then build the 

 style of house that comes nearest meeting your ideas of the purpose 

 for which it was intended. Make it substantial, comfortable and in- 

 expensive. 



THE RIGHT KIND OF LAYING OR BREEDING HOUSE. 



POINTS TO BE CONSIDERED. 



Points to be remembered in the construction and equipment of 

 your poultry houses are that they should be inexpensive, comfortable, 

 convenient, dry, cheerful, sanitary and properly ventilated. The roof 

 and walls of the house should not be built very high, as the lower the 

 roof the less wall there is exposed and the warmer the house. Allow 

 about nine or ten cubic feet of air space and about four square feet of 

 floor space to each fowl. Shape the roof like any of the houses de- 

 scribed in this book, and cover the roof first with board and then cover 

 the boards with some good roofing material. Concrete posts or a solid 

 foundation of concrete is best. Where the soil will permit, a good dirt 

 floor, filled in several inches higher than the earth on the outside is very 

 satisfactory. An inch and a half or two-inch concrete floor, covered 

 with sand or soil, is rat-proof, and perhaps best as a rule. The walls 

 should be made of matched lumber, which has been planed on both 

 sides. You can then keep it painted on the inside with some good lice 

 killer, and there is no hiding place for mites. If you have a long, open 

 front house, it is best to have a solid board or cloth partition between 

 each pen, with a light swinging door leading from pen to pen. You do 

 not have to stoop to latch and unlatch the doors as you pass through, 

 and there is no danger of llu* fowls getting mixed by some one leaving 

 a door open. The windows should be placed rather high, so they will 

 admit sunlight to the rear of the house, and should be placed up and 

 down instead of horizontal. Place the roost poles in the rear of the 

 house, away from any draft, and make droppings board beneath. The 

 pen-lies should all be on a level, and so arranged that they can be 

 easily removed. A 2x2 or a 2x4-inch. with a narrow edge rounded 

 and Inrm-d up. make a desirable roost, and place them about fifteen 

 to eighteen inches apart. The droppings platform should be perfectly 

 tirhl, ;ni<l they should !><> so laid that in scraping the droppings off 

 you will scrape with the hoards ,-uid nut across them. The illustration 

 of the nest, which you will find on another page in this book, is per- 



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