FILLING THE EGG BASKET. 



How a Well Known Breeder's Standard=Bred Fowls are 



Housed and Fed to Produce Plenty of Eggs 



When Prices are High. 



By E. C. Willard. 



A cut of part of our laying house, which is 192 feet long, 

 is presented herewith. It is built on a wood foundation. 

 The frame is of 2 x 4 pieces. The walls are of waste lum- 

 ber, box lumber and hemlock boards, with single-ply tar 

 paper inside. The roof is made of shiplap, and the whole 

 outside is covered with prepared roofing. The partitions 

 are built of common boards, except a door three feet wide 

 at the south. The door is made of netting stretched on 

 a frame and is hung on double-acting spring hinges. The 

 house has eight pens, each 10 x 24 feet . Each pen has 

 a doorway in front, 43^ x 6 feet, and four openings, each 

 for a twelve-light, 8 x 10 glass, window. At the bottom 

 of the doorway there is a board door, 4J^ x 4 feet, opening 

 outward and the space above is closed by a muslin screen 

 during severe weather and when storms would beat in. 

 We keep the whole doorway open in mild weather and on 

 bright days in real cold weather. We have wire screens 

 to be used to,^ conjee, the fowls when the door is open, if 

 necessary. "'^■A.nd '^itry to keep a space in front of each 

 pen clear of snow during the winter, so that the hens can 

 get out in the air. The floors are of dirt and sand, covered 

 with straw to a depth of six or eight inches in winter. 



The furnis-hings in each pen are a long feed box, a re- 

 frigerator pan for water, set in the partition so as to serve 

 two pens, nests of various sorts, droppings boards and 

 perches. Two pens are provided with burlap curtains 

 to enclose the roosts, but we did ijot find it necessary to 

 use them last winter. It is our intention to leave one half 

 of the glass out of this house this winter, filling the open- 

 ings with muslin tacked on light frames. The breeding 



