SUMMER AND WINTER CARE 



65 



tain (eartheft ware or galvanized iron) should be supplied 

 in a cool, shady place. Renew the water as often as con- 

 venient, daily, if the weather is very hot. Be sure that 

 the poultry house is wide open, and keep the drop-boards 

 clean. Filthy accumulations of droppings in hot weather 

 are liable to cause trouble. There is less danger from 

 this source if the birds have free range. 



Care of the Growing Stock 



Growing stock intended for 

 breeders should have ample, well 

 shaded, green grass range. An 

 orchard makes an ideal summer run. 



Care should be taken not to 

 allow too many birds to run in one 

 flock. They should be housed in 

 small, open-air, colony coops, and 

 must not be allowed to crowd at 

 night. When it is possible to'do so, 

 separate the cockerels from the pul- 

 lets and give them different runs. 

 Usually twenty-five young birds is 

 a suflBcient number to feed in one 

 flock, and often twelve or fifteen 

 will do better than twenty-five. It 

 is not necessary to yard in each 

 colony house. 



The colony houses should be 

 located at convenient distances 

 apart. When the young birds are 

 first placed in them, they should 

 be confined to the house by means 

 of portable fencing, for a few days. 

 Five or six days yarding in this man- 

 ner will be suflBcient to get them 

 wonted to the new quarters. The 

 yards may then be taken away and 

 the young birds allowed free range. 



If proper care is taken at first to accustom the birds to 

 their new home the different flocks will give very little trouble 

 by mixing up at night. It is always well to make the rounds 

 of the chicken coops at night and make sure that none of the 

 houses is crowded. Coops with board floors and no roosts 

 in a dry location usually give the best results, if the fronts 

 are not open at the floor level. 



An apex house, such as is shown in the accompanying 

 illustration, makes an admirable home for growing chicks. 

 Where entirely open-front, colony houses are used, it is well 

 to provide roosts in the rear part of the buildings. The same 

 care should be taken to supply young birds with pure food, 

 water, grit, shell, charcoal and green bone as is taken with 

 adult stock. 



Care of the Poultry Houges and Fixtures 



It is time now to clean up and disinfect and store away 

 the sitters' nests, brood-coops, brooders and chick shelters 

 used for the earlier flocks. Do it now! 



Do not put them away dirty. Brooders should be clean- 

 ed with a strong solution of creolin, napcreol, carbonol, or 

 sulphonaphthol. Use one gill of the disinfectant fluid mixed 

 with one gallon soft water. After cleaning the brooder, 

 brood box or coop, spray the interior with the disinfectant 

 solution. Nest boxes or brood coops may be white-washed 

 and then placed in the sun to dry. Store them where they 

 will be convenient to get at when you want them next spring. 



There is no time like the present for thoroughly renovat- 

 ing and disinfecting the breeding and laying quarters. If 

 your houses have earth floors,. six to ten inches of the top 

 earth should be removed and replaced with clean gravel or 



sand. All old litter should be removed and burned. 



All nest boxes should be cleaned, and all old nesting 

 material removed and burned. If the house has a wooden 

 or cement floor it should be first scraped and swept,'^^then 

 sprinkled thoroughly with strong creolin disinfectant solu- 

 tion, mentioned above; scraped again and then white- washed. 

 All dust and cobwebs ought to be swept out of the house be- 



Apex colony house of fresh-air type as designed and used by Mr. J, H. Curtiss, Assinippi Mass. 

 It has a'board floor but no roosts and makes an excellent home for either young or old stock. 



fore cleansing the floor. Clean the windows, too, while you 

 are about it. Bear in mind that this is the annual house- 

 cleaning. Take the nest boxes, food hoppers, or other fur- 

 nishings out and give them a good coat of whitewash. The 

 interior of the buildings may be whitewashed with the aid 

 of 'an automatic spray pump, if so desired, and the house 

 then fumigated while the whitewash is still wet. (See 

 "Method of Fumigating." described on page 72.) 



If the yards are small and bare, scrape them and remove 

 the top crust to the manure pile or garden. Then spade 

 them up or plow and stir the soil until it -is well aired and 

 pulverized. Oats or turnips make a good crop to sow in the 

 poultry yard at this time and the fowls may be allowed to 

 eat the shoots and young plants after they are a couple of 

 inches high. Large runs should be plowed, well harrowed 

 and sowed to some quick-growing crop or should be kept 

 well stirred until late in August or the middle of September, 

 and then sown with rye or wheat for winter growing; well 

 sodded grass runs take care of themselves if they have suffi- 

 cient slope to drain properly or if the soil is sufficiently 

 porou§. 



September and October Work 



Young pullets intended for winter layers should be given, 

 so far as possible, free use of a large grass range through the 

 month of September, and should be fed liberally. 



They may be fed on the- same ration as that used for 

 laying stock. They should remain in the colony house until 

 the latter part of September, unless the nights are very cold. 

 Usually by October 1st they should occupy their permanent 

 winter quarters in the laying and breeding house. Where 



