CHAPTER VII 

 SYSTEMS OF POULTRY KEEPING 



Definitions. Method and system are not always clearly differen- 

 tiated, and the terms are often used as synonymous. There are, 

 however, many cases in which the difference is apparent. Method 

 usually applies to processes, system to series of processes or to 

 comprehensive plans, including a variety of more or less related 

 processes.^ 



General methods. In poultry keeping methods are described as 

 extensive (giving the birds as much room as they can use to their 

 own advantage or to the saving of labor for the poultryman) or 

 intensive (placing on a given area of land a much larger number 

 of birds than the land can support, even for a very brief period, 

 with proportionate increase of labor and expense for their main- 

 tenance). The common tendency in practice is to go to one or 

 the other extreme. The practice best adapted to any particular 

 place 'and conditions is usually some combination of extensive and 

 intensive methods. 



Essence of system. A system of poultry keeping is a compre- 

 hensive plan for adapting conditions and methods to the manage- 

 ment of large numbers of poultry. In the development of systems 

 of poultry keeping, conditions and appliances are of more impor- 

 tance than processes. The object of system is to simplify methods 

 and reduce labor, while maintaining conditions favorable to the 



1 The way of killing a fowl is a method. The way of feeding a single lot of 

 poultry for any particular purpose is a method. Several related methods of 

 feeding poultry for different purposes may constitute a system of feeding. The 

 housing of a single lot of poultry supplies a condition. The house is an appliance, 

 a part of the permanent equipment of the poultry keeper. " Method of housing " 

 would mean merely the act of putting the poultry into the house. The handling 

 of a single flock of poultry, though systematic, cannot as a rule be said to consti- 

 tute a system. In occasional cases a poultry keeper may carefully work out a 

 routine of operations with a single flock which might be called a system, but in 

 general the managing of single flocks is merely a combination of methods having 

 no special logical relation to each other. 



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