poultry experiments. io5 



Sizes of Flocks, Rooms and Individual Floor Spaces. 



We are now using three large laying and breeding houses, and 

 a smaller curtain front building known as the "Pioneer House." 



House No. I is i6 feet wide and 150 feet long. This house 

 is warmed by hot water and is always kept above the freezing 

 point by the use of about four tons of coal each year. It has 

 been in use seven years and the birds occupying it have laid well, 

 and been in good health, but have not had as good color and 

 were not as vigorous as their mates in the open front houses. 

 The pens in this house are 10 by 16 feet in size and have been 

 occupied by 20 hens, and during the breeding seasons generally 

 by one or two males in addition. 



House No. 2 is two years old. It is 12 feet wide and 150 feet 

 long. Aside from the Pioneer House, this is the first curtain 

 front elevated roosting closet house we built. It is fully 

 described in Bulletin 100. The pens in this house are 12 by 20 

 feet in size and each one contains 50 hens, besides the cockerels 

 at breeding time, which gives four and four-fifths square feet of 

 floor space to each hen. 



House No. 3 was constructed last fall. It is 16 feet wide and 

 120 feet long. It is of the same style as No. 2 except that it is 

 wider. There are four pens in the building, each 16 feet wide 

 and 30 feet long. Two of the pens are arranged for 100 hens 

 each, and two of them for 150 each. 



We have now used the Pioneer house four years with 50 

 pullets in it each year, the No. 2 house two years with 300 

 pullets each year and the No. 3 house one year. Besides these 

 three houses, we have had the use of another house of the open 

 front style of construction for three years with about 200 year- 

 ling, breeding hens in it each year. 



These curtain front houses have all proved eminently satisfac- 

 tory. Not a case of colds or snuffles has developed from sleep- 

 ing in the warm elevated closets, with their cloth fronts, and 

 then going directly down into the cold room, onto the dry straw, 

 and spending the day in the open air. The egg yields per bird 

 have been as good in these houses as in the warmed one. The 

 purposes of the different sizes of rooms and flocks is to compare 

 the results of the welfare and egg yields of the birds under the 

 different conditions. 



