POULTRY KEEPING AND KEEPERS 
terial to constitute a large part of the food neces- 
sary to maintain enough chickens to keep them 
supplied with eggs and poultry meat. Sometimes, 
too, there are neighbors who will be only too glad 
to have their waste collected for this purpose. 
Parings of all kinds of vegetables, refuse leaves of 
cabbage and lettuce, onion tops, small potatoes, 
stale bread crusts, and all such things which are 
usually wasted, may well be utilized in this connec- 
tion and will be found to give every bit as good 
results as would higher-priced materials. 
Housing. Nothing expensive or elaborate is 
necessary in the way of a house for a small back- 
yard flock of hens, although, of course, a nice 
house will add to the attractiveness of the place; 
but that makes no difference to the hens, so 
long as the homely-appearing house is comfortable. 
A building ought to contain at least one hundred 
square feet of floor space to comfortably house a 
dozen to fifteen hens, and ought not to cost more 
than ten dollars to twenty dollars, especially since 
waste material can often be utilized in its con- 
struction. 
A piano-box poultry house (that is, a house 
made by joining together two piano boxes) makes 
a very serviceable and very cheap house for this 
number of fowls; in fact, as a general thing this 
type of house is the cheapest form available for a 
small flock. The addition of a window or two 
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