HENS FOR EGGS. 6l 



small houses scattered over many acres, and giving 

 them free range, is not at all feasible when the object 

 is to produce market eggs. 



The style of house most economical to build, and 

 that best serves its purpose on an egg farm, is a long, 

 low shed-roofed structure, divided into apartments 

 and facing south or southeast. Several typical build- 

 ings of this description are owned by a noted egg 

 farmer. They are each two hundred and sixteen feet 

 long, ten feet wide, seven feet high in front and four 

 and one-half feet in the rear. The front leans back 

 one foot, making it exactly ten feet wide, saving two 

 hundred and sixteen feet of roofing, and giving the 

 windows a slant so as to get a stronger sunlight on the 

 floor. Hemlock frame and boards are used, the" front 

 battened and the roof and rear wall covered with tarred 

 felt. The interior is partitioned off every twenty-four 

 | feet, giving two hundred and forty square feet of floor 

 space to each apartment. There are two large win- 

 dows to the front of each room, these are made to 

 slide and serve also as doors into the yards in front. 

 The partitions are boarded up three feet, and wire 

 netting used above the boards. There is a gate two 

 | feet wide on the front side of each partition, hung 

 , with double-acting spring hinges, so the attendant can 

 walk right through with two pails of feed or water 

 without stopping to open or close them. A platform 

 twenty-eight inches wide, two feet above the floor, 

 j runs along the rear of each room, and ten inches above 

 i this platform is a perch. The nests are placed under- 

 j neath the platform on the floor, the hens entering 

 from the rear. These houses all have earth floors 



