246 THE SMALL COUNTRY PLACE 



tion from cold. The long range of houses with many 

 pens joined is also an economical house to build, as the 

 pens or sections are divided by wire netting or curtains, 

 thus reducing the amount of wall space for each pen. 

 This house also has the advantage that in caring for the 

 fowls in stormy or cold weather one can pass from pen 

 to pen without going out of doors. The main advan- 

 tage of the large house with a large number of fowls 

 in one room is in the feeding and care, especially where 

 the dry mash system is practised. Here dry food may 

 be placed in slatted troughs, where all the fowls may 

 help themselves. Enough dry grain may be scattered 

 in the litter for all at once, and a sufficient supply of 

 water be provided. Then the studs being high there is 

 a better circulation of air than there is in smaller 

 buildings. 



Building the Houses. 



At the North poultry houses must be built so as to be 

 warm in the coldest weather, yet the fowls do much 

 better if allowed to run a part of each day in a dry 

 cold place where they must scratch to keep warm. 

 In the living room the temperature should range from 

 40 to 60, according to whether the sun shines or not, 

 but water should not freeze much during the night. 

 A warm house is cheaply obtained by using lining paper 

 over rough boards. Many people put building paper on 

 the sides of their hen houses, but leave the spaces be- 

 tween the rafters without the paper, and when cold 

 weather comes on the cold air drops down from these 

 surfaces and the houses are damp and cold. The soil, 

 too, close up to the houses freezes and the frost works 

 in under the building and we have a cold, damp floor for 

 the fowls. To prevent this a space three or four feet 

 from the walls of the building must be covered with 



