CHAPTER XXXV 
SCRATCHING-SHEDS 
employment of large, dry, airy scratching-sheds shoud be 
multiplied almost indefinitely. There is perhaps no single 
aid to eggs of such importance as an ample scratching-shed, well 
littered with straw, peat moss, bracken or sawdust, to give the 
fowls plenty of work in picking up their daily food. 
The scratching-shed may be of two kinds. Either the sleeping- 
house and scratching-shed should be one large house or there ought 
to be a sleeping-chamber with a scratching-shed attached. Most 
intensive and semi-intensive structures are composed of one build- 
ing with perches behind where the fowls roost at night, with plenty 
of floor space and an open front where plenty of light and air are 
admitted. It matters little which of the methods are adopted, 
but if I cannot get two large houses I prefer the one building 
where the fowls have the whole of the cubic content of air to 
breathe during their sleep. Fifty fowls may sleep comfortably 
in a house 8 feet by 8 feet, but it is better if they can get the 
benefit of a larger house—say 16 feet by 12 feet—which is also used 
as a scratching-shed during the day. 
If one were keeping birds as a hobby, irrespective of profit and 
loss, two large houses would be the ideal arrangement, but such a 
system could only apply to a few moneyed people and not to the 
men who hope to earn their living from poultry. For a good 
working plan the single house that gives each bird a minimum 
floor space of 4 feet is quite practicable, and not too expensive, 
Such a house ought not to cost more than about 5s, per bird— 
say £12, 10s. for the accommodation of 50 fowls. In pre-war 
times a house 12 feet by 12 feet would have been procurable at 
about £8 to £10, and it may be that after the war there will 
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L capital expenditure were not to be carefully considered the 
