POULTRY EXPERIMENTS. , 149 



Each of the houses accommodate 125 or 150 chicks from the 

 time brooding commences until they are moved into winter 

 quarters. They are large enough so the necessary work can be 

 done comfortably in them. During rainy days, when the birds 

 must be kept indoors, there is room for them, and they will not 

 suffer seriously if the floors are generously covered with cut 

 clover or chaff. The birds in them are safe at night from 

 storms, and all thieves that walk on four feet, crawl, or fly. 

 They are built on shoes so that they can be drawn near together 

 for convenience in the brooding season, during April, May and 

 June, and then to the grass fields for the range season. 



Such houses are almost indespensable to the person who raises 

 few or many chickens. Their use removes many of the obstacles 

 that tend to annoy and defeat chicken raisers. 



Each house is 12 feet long and 7 feet wide. The front wall 

 is 6 feet 2 inches high, and the back 4 feet 2 inches high from 

 floor to roof, inside. This allows a full grown person to stand 

 erect in the front part of the house. The two shoes on which 

 it is built are 4 by 6 inches in size and lie flat. Their ends are 

 chamfered on the under side so as to give them a sled runner 

 turn. They are 14 feet long, and extend a foot outside of each 

 end of the building. An inch auger hole slanting backward, and 

 outward, is bored through each end of the shoes. For conven- 

 ience in moving the houses, a short chain with an eye bolt in 

 each end, which can be slipped through the auger holes and 

 keyed, is used. 



The floors are of two thicknesses of boards, breaking joints 

 so as to preent the air from drawing through. The walls and 

 roof are boarded and covered with one of the better qualities of 

 sheet roofing materials. A door 2 feet wide and 6 feet high is 

 placed in the center of the front wall with a window on each 

 side of it. Each window contains 6 lights of 10 by 12 glass in 

 one sash. It is hinged at the top and turns out, like an ordinary 

 storm window. It is either closely buttoned down, or held open 

 at different spaces, by hooks of various lengths. The longest 

 opening is a foot, which leaves the window slanting out at an 

 angle sufficient to give plenty of fresh air in warm weather when 

 both windows are open, and the house full of birds. The advan- 

 tages of hinged, over sliding windows, are that in stormy 

 weather, rains and winds do not beat in to wet or annov the 



