CHAPTER XXVII 
ALTERNATIVE RUNS 
HEREVER possible two runs should be attached to 
\ \ | each poultry-house. Even where space is compara- 
tively limited two runs will be found better than one. 
Supposing that one has only half-an-acre available as a run for 
200 birds. Manifestly the space is inadequate, but curiously 
enough it has in practice been found better to divide the ground 
up into two runs and allow the birds to use them alternatively at 
different seasons of the year. If I had only half-an-acre of ground 
for 200 birds I would divide it into two parts—not equal parts, as 
is generally done. It will be found that birds are much more fre- 
quently in the open in the summer than in the winter months. 
They are out oftener when it is mild and dry, and as these condi- 
tions obtain chiefly, say, from March to October, the fowls are out 
foraging for insect food and eating plentifully of the grass or other 
green stuff they may find. It follows then that the run will be 
used practically twice as much in the summer months as in the 
winter months. It will be heavily manured and hardly a blade of 
grass will be left. 
It is therefore only in keeping with common-sense that the run 
to be used for the summer months should be larger than the little- 
used run of the winter months. One might not be far wrong if 
the larger or summer run occupied three-quarters of the available 
space, but in any case it should not be less than two-thirds. I find 
that from March till the end of September something like one half 
of my birds are out of doors, excepting in stormy weather. From 
the middle of October to the middle of March probably not one- 
fifth of them are in the run at a time, and on cold, windy days some- 
times one may not see a bird out of doors. It follows then that 
the summer run is used to a far greater extent, and for that reason 
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