I50 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I907. 



birds, and free ventilation is not interfered with. The window 

 openings are covered with wire netting on the inside. A slide 

 door, a foot square, is made down at the floor, near each end of 

 the front of the building, for the chicks to pass through. A 

 temporary board partition about 15 inches high divides the 

 building crosswise into halves. Two No. 4 Peep-O'-Day 

 brooders * are used in each of these houses. They are put 

 about 2 inches away from the back wall so as to allow the free 

 passage of air to the intake openings in the sides of the brooders. 

 They set about a foot away from each end of the building, and 

 this space is filled in with an elevated platform and incline, 

 which allows the chicks to go out through the brooder door arid 

 down a broad easy grade to the floor. The Peep-O'-Day 

 brooders * are all made alike, with the lamp door at one side 

 and the chick door at the other. They are located so that the 

 lamp doors are towards the middle of the building and about 

 4 feet from each other, which gives about 2 feet between the 

 lamp door and the temporary partition, sufficient room in which 

 to attend to the lamps. The hinges to the brooder cover are put 

 at the back, which allows the cover to turn up against the back 

 wall out of the way. 



These portable brooder houses are well made, of good mate- 

 rial, and if the shoes are kept blocked up from the ground, they 

 should last as long as other farm buildings. When they are 

 drawn to the range for the warm season, they are turned back 

 to the south, so that the sun may not shine in the windows to 

 heat the house and make it uncomfortable for the birds. Facing 

 the north, the houses furnish good cool shelter during the heat 

 of the day. 



The houses which the pullets occupy are blocked up about a 

 foot and a half and the open space between the house and the 

 ground gives cool shelter which the birds enjoy. The pullets 

 do not trouble about going under the house to spend the night, 

 but the cockerels do, and we find it necessary to board around 

 the cockerel houses and deny them the cool retreat. As the 

 cockerels develop in September and October, they become quar- 



* No extended tests of incubators, brooders, and other appliances have 

 been made at the Maine Station. In this bulletin the makes that are in 

 use at this Station are named. These may not be the best of their classes 

 but have worked satisfactory here. 



