26 POULTRY-CRAFT. 
30. Other Houses for Single Flocks.— All the poultry houses 
described in the next paragraph can, of course, be used for single flocks in 
yards. Single sections of most of the continuous houses described are used 
for one-pen houses, and these should be examined in connection with the 
plans just given. 
31. The Colony Plan.— The objectionable features of this plan are such 
that it is not often deliberately adopted for a large poultry plant. Of late, some 
of those who have used the system seem inclined to discard it. The strong- 
hold of the system of colonizing fowls in small families with free range has 
been the belief that fowls could be made more profitable on free range than in 
yards; that they would be healthier, more vigorous, more prolific, and the 
eggs would be more fertile. As this belief breaks down, people become more 
and more unwilling to put up with the defects of the system: for the sake of its 
advantages, real and supposed. Briefly stated, the principal advantages of the 
colony plan are: 
Cheaper houses. 
No expense for fences. 
The fowls can pick a part of their living. 
The scrupulous attention to cleanliness and the care to provide regular 
supplies of animal and vegetable foods, whigh are a part .of the routine work 
of most poultry farms, can be relaxed on a farm run on the colony plan. 
The marked disadvantages of the system are : 
Increased cost of labor in caring for fowls. Taking one thing and one 
season with another, the cost of labor is greater, notwithstanding the slight 
saving on some items of labor. 
Greater difficulty in maintaining strict regularity in feeding. In bad weather, 
just when the most careful attention should be given them, the hens are often 
unavoidably neglected. 
The difficulty of controlling disease in flocks allowed to mingle. 
The modification of the colony plan, which places detached houses in large 
yards, loses the advantage of no cost for fences. Cost of fencing is so much 
increased that rarely is any saving effected in the total cost of housing and 
yarding. In snowy, stormy weather the difficulty of caring for the fowls is 
increased, rather than diminished. 
The colony plan, with or without yards, loses its most serious objections in 
a mild climate. There are many special cases where it might be preferable to 
any other, particularly when poultry keeping is a side issuc on a fruit or 
general farm, the hens being kept as insect exterminators, gleaners and 
scavengers. For the ordinary farm stock of poultry the colony plan, on a 
small scale, is often the best. The illustrations given show models of cheap 
and serviceable buildings in use on some of the farms run on the colony plan. 
