292 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August, 
open to view from the main apartment, hens 
will, in stormy weather, for lack of other em¬ 
ployment, sometimes enter them to scratch for 
food, and thus by chance break eggs and learn 
to eat them, and acquire the habit of pecking 
at and devouring eggs as fast as laid. But a 
darkened nest will deter them from entering, 
except to lay, for which purpose they prefer a 
dark, low corner. There is a row of six nests 
running across the building at each end, making 
twelve,which will be sufficient, as it will not hap¬ 
pen that more than that number out of a flock 
will need them at once. The passages are made 
so that they maybe taken out with the nests for 
whitewashing. The end sills, of plank 18 inches 
wide, serve as a tight floor for the nests and 
passage. The perches, two in number, are 18 
inches apart, and each is 18 inches from the 
roof, and 2 ft. higher than the sills. Perches 
should be of 2* ( 2 x 3'| 2 -inch sawed stuff, the 
widest part up, with the upper corners rounded 
off a very little. When fowls not fully grown 
roost upon narrow perches, their breast-bones 
sometimes become deformed. Prom four to five 
average-sized fowls will occupy 2 feet of perch. 
The perches, being each 12 ft. long, will accom¬ 
modate a flock of fifty, and are to be placed so 
as not to extend over the part occupied by the 
nests. The drinking vessel stands upon one of 
the platforms formed by the nests, and upon 
these platforms are also shallow boxes contain¬ 
ing gravel, pounded charcoal, and a mixture of 
loam, sand, and oyster-shell lime, made into an 
easily crumbled mortar. The boxes are 10 inch¬ 
es wide, and, being placed next the end wall, 
leave a space 8 inches wide upon the platform, 
for the fowls to stand upon. The drinking pail 
and gravel boxes are protected by their eleva¬ 
tion from the dirt that would otherwise be 
thrown into them by the fowls when scratch¬ 
ing and dusting, and are fronted by slats with 
openings 6 x 2 3 / 4 inches between them. An 
opening is made in the end wall over the pail 
that is just large enough to admit the spout of 
a large watering-pot without the sprinkler, to 
afford the most convenient arrangement for wa¬ 
tering. The door, D, 1 ft. wide, opening down¬ 
wards, is for removing the pail and gravel box¬ 
es when desired, and when fastened ajar will 
be found more convenient for ventilation than 
the roof doors, when the weather is only moder¬ 
ately warm. Both ends of the building alike 
are furnished with doors. 
During the severest weather, generally about 
three or three and a half months of the year, 
this building does not stand with sills upon the 
dry in the fall, it will not absorb moisture from 
the ground beneath during winter, any faster 
than it dries away from the surface where the 
fowls keep it in motion. There need be no 
cleaning of the house while thus arranged for 
winter, but about once a month an inch or two 
of dry earth may be added. There will be no 
accumulations under the perches if the birds 
are kept not too profusely supplied with gravel 
at that season, as they should be to induce them 
to thoroughly pulverize every portion of the 
manure and mix it with the dry earth, in search 
of the gravel which is very frequently voided. 
There can be no objection to saving labor by 
inducing the birds to perform the work of scav¬ 
engers, which will give them salutary exercise, 
for it is not intended that they shall be deprived 
of as much gravel as they need, but only forced 
to use the same many times over. The bin, as 
it may be called, should be strengthened with 
braces across the corners, and kept from spread¬ 
ing by the pressure of its contents by strips 
nailed from side to side. After the building has 
been moved in spring to a new station, the bin 
is to be pried up until the earth drops through, 
it having no bottom, and when empty it maybe 
tains a trough made by nailing boards 3 inches 
wide to each edge of a board 5 inches wide. A 
door, F, in one end of the feed-room, large enough 
to admit a fowl, communicates with a similar 
door, G, in the south side of the main building, 
by a movable covered passage, 5 1 /, ft. long, l‘/ 4 
high, and 1 wide, it being like a box with a lid, 
and but one end, and with an opening on one 
side. This passage is not shown in the illustra¬ 
tion. Every night in winter, after the fowls are 
at roost, the door G should be closed, and the 
window-shutters of the main building likewise. 
In the morning a mixture of vegetables boiled 
and mashed, scalded meal, and a little meat 
boiled and chopped fine, is placed in the feed- 
trough, and the daily rations of hard grain 
buried underneath straw which covers the 
ground of the feeding apartment to the depth 
of 8 or 10 inches. The fowls are prevented by 
the shutters from looking- on. Next open the 
passage and in a minute the fowls will all be at 
the feed-box. After finishing the soft feed, the 
grain, consisting in part of buckwheat or cracked 
corn or wheat screenings, so as to make as much 
work as possible to find it, will be scratched for 
at intervals all day long. A little practice will 
Fig. 2. —HOUSE FOR LAYERS—SUMMER ARRANGEMENT. 
ground, but for winter it rests, as in the figure, 
upon the edges of a box or bin of dimensions 
corresponding with the center of the sills of the 
building, made of planks 9 inches wide and 2 
thick, like a mortar-bed with no bottom, filled 
with dry earth. This should be set upon ridges 
thrown up by the plow, as previously described, 
and it will be found that,by starting with the earth 
readily hauled by team, like a sled, to the place 
where it is to be used, as will be explained, in 
connection with chicken raising. The building 
is hauled on and off this bin yearly by taking 
the wedge-shaped platform for drying earth, 
previously figured, for a skid, and attaching the 
team to a rope 20 ft. or more long, and using 
small rollers. It is a quick and not over- 
troublesome operation, for it must be recollect¬ 
ed that the house is not large nor heavy. 
During the winter, a low structure, 6 ft. wide 
and 12 long, and l ! / 2 high on one side, and 3y 2 
on the other, seen at the left in the illustra¬ 
tion, serves the purpose of a feeding room, 
and the rest of the year is used as a shel¬ 
ter for chickens. Its winter 
location is about 4 ft. from 
the larger building. E, E, 
E, E, represent doors which 
overlap each other to shed 
rain, and when closed rest 
upon the highest or north wall, 
and open upwards and to the 
south,resting upon a rail attach¬ 
ed to posts set in the ground. 
In each door is a window 3 ft. 
square, glazed, as are all the * 
windows in the various fowl- 
houses, greenhouse style. This 
feed-house is movable, being 
furnished with planks set edgewise, with run¬ 
ner-shaped ends for side sills. Inside, a feed- 
box, slatted on both sides, rests on cleats at¬ 
tached to the end walls, 20 inches from the north 
wall, and near the top of the room, so that dirt 
can not be scratched into it. It has a shelf 7 
inches wide on both sides in front of the slats, 
on which the birds stand while feeding, and con¬ 
enable the attendant to give just enough, and 
have none left over night. 
During a few of the coldest spells, such as 
usually occur three or four times in the winter, 
and last three to seven days, and during storms, 
fowls prefer to remain in doors all day, but 
they should never, except in the morning, before 
feeding, be prevented from going out if they 
choose. Altogether there are not usually twen¬ 
ty days in a year during which fowls will vol¬ 
untarily keep inside all day. Snow should be 
cleared from a plat of ground at each station, 
with the aid of the team, and the scraper and 
shovel previously described. If the winter is 
open and mild, have a pile of straw out of doors 
with grain buried under it. As soon as the 
buildings are moved to the new stations in 
spring, and the feeding-rooms are also drawn 
off to be used in housing young chickens, the 
feed-boxes are taken out, they merely resting 
on cleats, without being fastened, and earned 
to the stations, where they stand on the ground 
out of doors during summer, for use each morn¬ 
ing, feed being placed in them, out of sight of 
the birds, as before. 
In the illustration of the summer arrange¬ 
ment the feed-box is seen in the foreground, 
and the doors in both roofs of the house are 
propped up a little, as in cases of extremely 
hot weather. It will be found that the birds 
will seek the protection of a building thus ar¬ 
ranged, for shade, when the heat is severe, in 
preference to any other place. In summer the 
grain is buried under a profuse allowance of 
straw, by the use of a horse-rake and hay ted¬ 
der, or under the soil, by means of the fine and 
short-toothed harrow used in pulverizing earth 
for gathering, as mentioned in a former paper. 
