Various Plans for Yards. 
9 
ouse between tvvo seeds made to answer the purpose of two, by throwing' a wooden floor across, 
about half way up. The ground floor thus formed the house for the shed on one side, and the 
“first floor,” reached by an inclined hen-ladder, did duty for the other, both being littered with 
straw. A hen-ladder, as is pretty generally known, is formed by nailing strips of wood an inch 
square across a plank a foot wide, at intervals of about three inches. The top corners of the 
strips should be taken off, or the feet may be injured by the sharp edges. 
Still further accommodation will be required if great success in exhibiting be desired, and 
especially if there be any extensive demand for the proprietor’s eggs and stock. In planning such, 
regard must necessarily be had to the shape and amount of space at disposal, especially if grass be 
at command. Scarcely any two yards are alike in these circumstances, and hence no one can 
probably be exactly copied by the reader ; nevertheless, useful hints may be gathered from the 
plans adopted by others. Fig. 7 is a plan of the yard of the late Mr. E. Tudman (celebrated for his 
partridge Cochins), at Ashgrove, Whitchurch, Salop. A A are houses and yards for breeding-pens 
or other purposes, each house measuring ten by eleven feet, and containing a dusting-trough, thus 
answering the purpose of both house and shed ; the yards in front being laid in gravel, and 
measuring thirty by ten feet. These runs have all access at pleasure to a grass-run, twenty-four by 
fifty feet. B B are smaller houses and runs, a portion of these also having access to a grass-run, 
twenty by fifty feet. C C are houses for cockerels and pullets respectively, each sex having a large 
grass-run to itself. D is a large chicken-house with a glass front, measuring twenty-two by nine- 
teen feet, in which early broods can be reared, under the most favourable circumstances, in any 
weather. E is a house containing pens for feeding and preparing birds intended for exhibition. 
F is a house and pens devoted entirely to the sitting hens ; and G is devoted to miscellanies and 
stores. All the grass-runs open behind into a shrubbery thirty feet deep, bounded by a brick 
wall, which can be used for any of the pens at pleasure, or, by the use of portable houses, be 
employed independent of them. 
In this yard may be observed all the essentials for breeding and showing any single variety 
of poultry in the greatest perfection. There are pens of sufficient size to maintain the breeding 
stock in perfect health, with separate pens, and accessible grass-runs, for bringing any bird wanted 
for show into first-rate condition ; the sitting hens are well accommodated, and a spacious chicken 
nursery prepares the young progeny for the ample range that awaits them when ready to be 
turned out. There is also ample accommodation for any moderate amount of surplus stock till 
it can be disposed of. This last is often overlooked by beginners, and if so is an occasion of serious 
loss ; as cockerels must be either killed or provided for separately when the breeding-pens are 
mated for the ensuing year, and unless there is accommodation for them, birds must then be 
sacrificed which might otherwise realise considerable sums. 
The most extensive and well-appointed poultry-yard in the United Kingdom, or, indeed, 
in the world, was unquestionably that of the Right Hon. Lady Gwydyr, at Stoke Park, 
Ipswich* The kindness of Lord Gwydyr, in placing at our service the results of a special 
survey, and a fully detailed scale-plan by Mr. Butterworth, has enabled us to give a correct 
plan of all the arrangements, which we are sure will be valued by many readers. 
The nucleus of the Stoke Park establishment consisted of an extensive range of buildings 
adapted to the necessities of a home-farm, which placed at disposal an extent of wide and lofty 
shedding very rarely available for such purposes, but which has been greatly extended and 
modified as found necessary. The nursery (numbered 49) may be given as an instance, consisting 
* Lady Gwydyr retired from the poultry fancy in 1891. 
