14 



THE COLONY-COMMUNITY PLAN. 



The third method of keeping hens in large numbers is, so far 

 :as I know, original with me, and may be called the colony-com- 

 munity plan. The plan in brief is this : to keep the hens in small 

 detached houses built in streets and situated close to one another, 

 with yards running to the rear instead of the front. 



It has always seemed to me a great mistake to run the yards 

 to the front of a hen house instead of to the rear. There are 

 innumerable occasions when the poultryman wishes to visit a pen 

 in the middle of a long house, and in order to do so he must open 

 and shut half a dozen doors or pass along an alley way for fifty 

 or one hundred feet. When he wishes to remove the litter or 

 shovel sand into the middle pens it is necessary to open and shut 

 a number of gates before he can do so. But with the yards in 

 the rear the poultryman can drive along the front of his house 

 and reach the middle pen as easily as he can at the ends. 



Colony-community houses arranged in streets, with yards running to the rear. 



The houses that I use in the colony-community plan are all 

 .alike, and are very simple in construction. Each house is 12 feet 

 long, seven feet wide, seven feet high in front and five feet high 

 in the rear ; and is designed to accommodate 50 brooder chicks, 20 



