Coops with Runs. 



1'27 



may be able to feed as soon as they wake, and not 

 be kept waiting, according to the usual plan, for two 

 or three hours during the long summer mornings before 

 they are let out. My birds are never shut in the coop 

 at night, the wire netting being sufficient protection against 

 vermin and cats. I do not know whether any of your readers 

 have ever accompanied their keeper on a hot summer morning 

 when he is letting the young birds out of the coops. If not, 

 let them do so, and but put their noses within a foot of the 

 coop and I will venture to say that they will never allow such 

 cruelty again. More than a dozen birds confined, perhaps 



COOP WITH MOVABLE SPARROW-PKOOF RUN. 



for ten hours, in a dirty, ill-ventilated box, containing less 

 than half a cubic yard of air. No wonder that they look 

 languid and drooping, and that it takes them half the day to 

 recover. I am far from insisting that the birds should at all 

 times be kept in these small yards. When they are more 

 than a week old I would, in fine weather, raise one of the sides 

 and let them roam at their will, of course replacing the board 

 at night. But in wet weather and in the mornings before 

 the dew is gone, I would keep them up, and not run the risk 

 of their getting draggled and chilled with running on the 

 wet grass." When shut in at night, which is often necessary 

 to avoid loss by weasels or rats, etc., they should be let out 

 at daybreak in the morning. 



Many keepers prefer rearing the young pheasants under 

 hens that are tethered by a cord to a peg driven into the ground, 

 with an open shelter coop into which they can retreat at night 

 and during rain. 



