82 



EAISING FOWLS AND EGGS 



FIG. 3 — RASGE OF BUMMER OPES CHICKES HOUSES — FEOKT. 



The arrangement on next page, colonizes the lots of chicks, 

 with the mothers, from March or April to June and forward, 

 and separates each from interference with the others. The 

 land might be subdivided into four lots, but the expense of 

 fencing would be considerable, of course, and has not been 

 found necessary upon the writer's system of management. In 

 each of the six coops indicated have been kept, from early March 

 or April, twenty-five to thirty chickens, with two or three hens 

 each, the aggregate, upon the half acre in the four houses, aver- 

 aging, during the summer, 600 to 650 chickens, raised for and 

 sold in market from June to August. A portioij of the chick- 

 ens, say one-fourth, are allowed to run into the whole lot 

 (which is in grass) during three or four hours daily, when they 

 are driven in, and another fourth part are released for exer- 

 cise. 



One house is usually devoted to male birds, exclusively. In 

 the fall, a few of the finest of both sexes are selected to add to 

 the next year's breeding stock, and the balance, seven or eight 

 months old, are sold for consumption, at fifteen to eighteen 



FIG. 5. — GKOUND PLAN OF OPES 8UMMEE CHICKEN COOPS. 



