HOUSES AND YAJIDS. 73 



HOUSES AND YARDS. 



If you bare to build a fowl-house it need not be in any yray 

 an expensive erection. Let it be, if possible, built on to an 

 outside wall of the house, say with its back to the kitchen or 

 greenhouse,, in such a position as to insure some degree of 

 warmth to the inmates. Let the floor be dry, the roof weather- 

 tight, and the ventilation good, and your fowls will be sure to 

 do well in it. The cheapest material to make it of would be 

 rortgJi boards. The roof can also be boarded, only in that case it 

 should be covered with felt. The holes for ventilation should be 

 so placed that the birds feel no cold air on them "while roosting. 

 Such a house should measure at least eight feet square, and the 

 roof should slope from about seven to five feet. The door should 

 lock, and a trap-door should be made in it for the hens to go in 

 and out at will: this trap-door should be a sliding one, and easily 

 closed when required, at night being always kept shut for fear 

 of foxes, cate, &c. 



Pere?ies should be round poles, not less than four or five inches 

 in diaaneter, and should not be set too high up — an error into 

 which many people fall. Three feet from the ground is 'quite 

 high-enough for the most elevated perch, and there should be 

 others lower, two and a half feet and two feet from the ground 



If perches are too high, heavy fowls cannotfly upto them with 

 ease, and in descending are certain in time to injure themselves, 

 bending or breaking the breastbone and injuring their feet. 



Thejloor should not be of brick, stone, or wood, but of beaten 



