POULTRY 



be given the hens, and will usually re- 

 pay itself in increased egg production. 

 As winter approaches, the fowls will 

 be more closely confined to their winter 

 quarters. When 70 fowls were shut up 

 early in November at the Canada exper- 

 imental farm, they laid 192 eggs; while 

 147 fowls allowed to run at large in a 

 field at this time laid but 133 eggs, 

 which indicates that early penning may 

 hasten winter laying. 



BUILDINGS AND YARDS FOR 

 POULTRY 



Buildings are being made much less 

 expensive for poultry than formerly. 

 The beginner, especially, should build 

 cheap houses. In the north, however, 



the roosts, and the roosts so arranged 

 that they can be raised up out of the 

 way when cleaning the dropping boards. 

 The nests will ordinarily be arranged 

 under the dropping board and so con- 

 structed that they can be easily removed 

 and cleaned. No floor other than the 

 bare earth is necessary and this should 

 be covered with straw 3 to 6 inches 

 deep. 



Floored vs. unfloored coops — At the 

 West Virginia station as many eggs 

 were produced and the chickens were as 

 healthy in unfloored coops as in floored 

 coops. In a test at the Canada experi- 

 mental farm of straw litter vs. sand 

 and gravel on the floor, the results were 



Fig. 413 — MIDSUMMER ON AN OHIO POULTRY AND TRUCK FARM 



the houses must be comfortable in win- 

 ter in order to secure egg production. 

 They should be built in a dry situation 

 with a front elevation of 7 to 9 feet and 

 a back elevation of about 5 feet. About 

 14 inches roosting space should be al- 

 lowed a hen. A covered scratching shed 

 for use in winter should be attached to 

 the roosting pen, with relatively long 

 running yards for summer. A cheap 

 roof is made of rough boards covered 

 with tarred paper. The paper will last 

 longer if the slant of the roof is not 

 more than 1 foot in 8. The roosts 

 should be about 2V2 to 3 feet from the 

 ground and all on a level. They should 

 be removable, so they can be easily taken 

 out and cleaned. A dropping board 

 should be extended all along underneath 



in favor of the straw, which induced 

 the hens to exercise more and when it 

 was removed, all of the feces and other 

 litter went with it. 



Curtain front houses—The Maine sta- 

 tion reports excellent result* in the use 

 of a curtain front poultry house with 

 curtained roosting closets. In this 

 house the rear walls and the 4 feet of 

 the lower part of the rear roof were 

 sealed on the inside and packed with 

 sawdust, so that there were no slack 

 places around the roof to admit cold air. 

 Each 20-foot section of the house had 

 two 12-light outside windows screwed on 

 the front, while the 8-foot space be- 

 tween the windows 3 feet down from the 

 plate was covered during rough winter 

 storms and cold nights by a light frame 



