DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE GEORGIA. 



over this shelf to catch the droppings, and to facilitate their collec- 

 tion, at intervals of two or three days. 



The nests may be placed against the wall of the house, under 

 this shelf, and thus be entirely protected from the droppings and 

 sufficiently secluded to suit the hens. The droppings can be very 

 easily swept from this shelf, into a vessel placed under it, without 

 defiling the floor. The droppings should be removed two or three 

 times a week and stored under shelter away from the fowl house. 

 The floor of the house, if of dirt, should be filled two or three 

 inches deep with dry sand, or clay, which should be dug up and 

 removed once a year and replaced with fresh soil. Whether of dirt,, 

 cement or plank, it should be occasionally sprinkled with diluted 

 sulphuric acid to destroy all germs of disease which may have found 

 a lodgment there. The sulphuric acid should be carefully handled 

 revent injury to the clothing or persons of those applying it. 

 The house should be thoroughly whitewashed twice a year to purify 

 it and to destroy insects injurious to the poultry. Crude petroleum, 

 or, if this cannot be had, kerosene oil, sprinkled over the roosts and 

 sides of the house, will be found beneficial in destroying the 

 insects. 



Thorough fumigation with tobacco smoke while the fowls are 

 confined in the house will prove efficacious. In order to secure the 

 full benefit of this, however, the house must be made close enough 

 to retain the smoke. 



Fowls are, however, far more healthy in our climate if required 

 to roost in trees during the summer. Indeed, they will be more 

 healthy if required to roost on trees throughout the year; but will 

 not produce so many eggs in winter as they will if kept during the 

 cold months in comfortable houses. 



Nests, on which hens are expected to sit, should be made upon, 

 the ground rather than upon plank. If made upon the latter it 

 will be well to place upon the bottom of the nests a fresh sod before 

 sitting the hens. Hollow out the sod in the form in which the hen 

 prepares it when left to her own instincts, and make a nest of green 

 cotton seed, preserving the same form. The green cotton seed are 

 in some way offensive to mites and other insects injurious to fowls. 

 Some years since an experiment was made with green cotton seed 

 in nests by the side of others in which grass was used. While eggs 



