66 THE CORNING EGG FARM BOOK 



, Houses, as we believed in constructing them, were 

 expensive, unless it was possible to carry a very- 

 large number of layers successfully in them. In 

 studying the two hundred and twenty-five pullets as 

 they worked contentedly in the No. i Laying House, 

 which was but twelve feet wide, we became con- 

 vinced that it was perfectly possible in a house six- 

 teen feet wide by one hundred and sixty feet in 

 length to carry fifteen hundred layers. This, to be 

 sure, allowed the hen only a little over two square 

 feet of floor space, with the dropping boards in- 

 cluded. But, as we figured it, the hen also had the 

 entire house for floor space, and, while it is true that 

 fourteen hundred and ninety-nine sisters were her 

 near neighbors, they all enjoyed the same large space 

 to roam in. A house, then, of this size, accommoda- 

 ting fifteen hundred layers, was not an expensive 

 house per bird, and, when you consider that the con- 

 struction was such that the up-keep was practically 

 nothing, it became not only not an expensive house, 

 but really a very cheap one. 



The success of the fifteen hundred layers in one 

 house proved itself at once, and we never have seen 

 the slightest necessity for altering the plan of the 

 Laying House, as we first laid it out. 



2,000 Birds to a House 



The large flock system works economies, then, in 

 housing, in the amount of labor necessary to care for 



