. HOUSES FOR LAYING HENS 47 



This house, designated as No. 2, was built three years 

 ago. It is 12 feet wide and 150 feet long and is divided 

 into 20 feet sections. In each section, with its floor sur- 

 face of 240 feet, 50 pullets have been wintered each year, 

 most successfully. 



Wide Houses are Most Satisfactory. 



Two years ago another, house was built on the same 

 plan, except that it is 16 feet wide instead of 12. It is 120 

 feet long and consists of 4 sections or houses, each 16 x 30 

 feet in size. There is no separate walk through the build- 

 ing, but in the close board partition, separating the pens, 

 are doors, hung with double acting hinges, which allow 

 them to swing both ways and close automatically after 

 the attendant , passes through. Each pen has a floor 

 surface of 480 feet and gives ample accommodation to 100 

 hens. All of the hens in these two open front houses, 

 in flocks of 50 or 100, averaged laying 144 eggs each last year, 

 and the birds were in excellent health. The front curtains 

 were open all of the time every day, except the very stormiest 

 in winter. 



While the same plan is common to all of these open 

 front houses, the width has been increased in each succeed- 

 ing one built. The first house was 10 feet wide, the second 

 12 feet, the third 16 feet in width. The laying and breed- 

 ing house at Go- Well Farm, to be described, is 20 feet wide 

 and is more satisfactory than the narrower houses, because 

 of economy in cost and its greater housing capacity in pro- 

 portion to its length, which reduces the labor required in 

 caring for the birds, by having them in square rooms rather 

 than in long narrow ones. 



The poultry plant at the Station is devoted to experi- 

 ment and research work. There arc many questions 

 relating directly to commercial poultry operations that 

 are left untouched because the Station plant is already 

 taxed to its capacity. 



When the Go- Well poultry farm was established last 

 year, the opportunities were so good for studying poultry 

 subjects on a purely commercial plant, where the entire 

 energies of the place are devoted to this one business specialty 



