POULTR?-CRAFT. 127 
170. Cleanliness.— Everything about a poultry plant should be kept 
reasonably clean — so clean that there are no offensive sights or odors. As a 
rule the droppings should be removed daily. Where the quantity of drop- 
pings to be removed :ach day is small the common practice is to clean twice 
a week, or once a week, or once a month. This is not a good plan. It does 
no harm to let the droppings boards go uncleaned for a few days, occaséonally, 
(at least it does no noticeable measurable harm) but it is not good for fowls 
to sleep nearly always with their heads only a few inches above an accumula- 
tion of their own excreta — and the lapse from daily cleaning ought not to be 
permitted to occur often. It should be the inviolable rule to take up the drop- 
pings daily,— 2 wzter, when the hens are on the roosts for fourteen or fifteen 
hours of the twenty-four; 2 damp weather, and whenever some of the drop- 
pings have the peculiarly offensive odor that gives warning of something 
going wrong in the digestive system. After being cleaned, the droppings 
‘boards should be sprinkled with land plaster, road dust, sifted coal ashes, or 
air-slaked lime to absorb the liquid manure. * 
TuE Foor of the roosting room, if not littered, should be raked or swept 
clean once a week or once a fortnight —the period between cleanings being 
regulated by the space per fowl and by the proportion of time the fowls spend 
in the roosting room. Small bare yards should be cared for in the same way. f 
Nests in which straw is used should be cleaned out, and new straw put in 
about once a month — oftener if the straw becomes damp or is fouled. In dry 
and sandy situations, bottomless nest boxes may be used on an earth floor 
without nesting material. These nests need no further care than they get 
when, in cleaning up the floor, they are set to one side, the floor beneath 
them raked smooth, the nest box replaced. The hens hollow the earth in the 
nest to suit themselves. 
greater floor space the litter is not so soon broken; with less floor space it would be very 
difficult to keep a floor in good condition without doing too much work. 
* NoTE.— If the droppings are saved to sell to tanneries, absorbents cannot be used on 
the boards. Near large tanneries there are generally men who make a business of col- 
lecting poultry manure. The price varies with the demand and supply, the average 
being about seventy-five cents per barrel. it is an open question with some poultrymen, 
who could use the manure on land, whether, all things considered, it does not pay better 
to use the manure than to sell it. When the hen manure is to be sold for tanning, the 
droppings boards cannot be kept in as nice condition; are more difficult to clean, and 
may be a menace to the health of the fowls. The droppings board saturated with urine 
is unsanitary, and though it may be used without bad consequences for a long time, it is 
unsafe, for unsanitary methods have a way of going back on a poultryman just as he 
begins to be sure that the opposition to them is all nonense. 
+ NoTE.— These advices as to the frequency of the periodical cleanings are of course 
suggestive; still they indicate very nearly the limits of time between cleanings when the 
fowls’ quarters are kept reasonably clean. A poultryman who works systematically, soon 
arranges a rotation of work which brings the regular cleanings near enough together to 
keep things looking respectable. 
