1902 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
447 
MAPES, THE HEN MAN. 
Small Houses for Hens. 
Will you give plan, dimensions, etc., of the Mapes hen¬ 
nery? How many acres do his 1,500 hens occupy? 
Colorado. o. l. s. 
PLAN OF BUILDINGS.—The houses I use for lay¬ 
ing stock are only 10x12 feet on the ground, with shed 
roof. The front is eight feet high, and faces south. 
The north side is five feet four inches high. On the 
south side is a door for general use, a small drop door 
6x8 inches for hens to pass in or out, and one good- 
sized window. The large door is near the east end, 
the small door near the middle, and the window near 
the west end. This permits the afternoon sun the 
greatest sweep of floor space in Winter. The table 
for droppings is 2V 2 feet above the floor, and extends 
along the whole north side of room. Under the table, 
on this north side, is cut a small door 214 feet high 
and one foot wide. Aside from this, the house is as 
near airtight and windproof as matched boards and 
building paper will make it. The small door under 
the roosting table on the north side is kept tightly 
closed in Winter, and in Summer it is protected with 
wire cloth and kept open. This permits a free cur¬ 
rent of air to circulate through the house and out at 
the open window on opposite side, without striking 
the hens on the perches above the table. I formerly 
kept 40 hens in each house, but recently have in¬ 
creased to 50 each. I purpose to Increase still further 
and try 60 in each house, if we succeed in raising 
enough pullets this season to do so. I am not yet 
ready to say much about utilizing the bodily heat 
from the hens for warming these houses, but feel per¬ 
fectly confident that it can be done, so that eggs can 
he left in the nests over night in coldest weather 
without freezing. Proper ventilation is the main 
problem. The 1,500 hens probably roam over nearly 
half of our farm of 70 acres, as their roaming ground 
covers quite a distance from the buildings in all 
directions. 
WINTER EGGS.—How to make a flock of hens lay 
in December and January as freely and as surely as 
they will in April or May is another of the solvable 
problems which confront us. I have long claimed 
that it can be done, and each year’s experience con¬ 
firms me in the belief, although I am 
free to confess that, as yet, I cannot do 
it, and know of no one who can. The 
process of solving the problem Is neces¬ 
sarily slow, since so many of the causes 
which lead to certain effects are un¬ 
known to us. I have been obliged to 
reason from effect to cause, instead of 
from cause to effect, which would be 
comparatively easy. Then again, it 
takes a whole year to study up a plau¬ 
sible theory, and then give the hens a 
chance to explode it. In this way I have 
gone over a good deal of the ground, arid 
each Winter’s experience adds to my 
store of knowledge of “how not to do 
it.” It is like making a systematic 
search of a room for a mislaid book. As 
shelf after shelf is carefully examined, 
the searcher feels more and more confi¬ 
dent that the next shelf will he the right 
one. How do I know that the egg yield 
can be got under control? I have oc¬ 
casionally known single hens, and even 
whole flocks, to do just the very thing 
I am striving for. Conditions happened 
by chance to be just right. When we 
learn what the conditions were, and 
how to produce them, success will be 
assured. One of my neighbors had a 
flock of 20 hens in January, 1901, that 
averaged 16 eggs a day for the whole 
month. They laid 19 eggs a day on 
three different days in that month. He 
had some sport at my expense, because 
his hens were doing so much better 
than mine. Last Winter he put the 
same number of hens in the same pen, 
and thought he had all the conditions 
of the previous Winter. Alas for his plans! His hens 
would not repeat the success of the previous Winter, 
in spite of all he could do. Instead of 16 eggs a day, 
the best he could do was about six a day. He did not 
understand all the conditions of the previous Winter. 
SKIM-MILK PIGS—Billy, the pig who balances his 
own ration, will soon be too much of a hog to weigh 
every week in a bag. His weight for the last five 
weeks is as follows: May 9, 26 pounds; May 16, 33 
pounds; May 23, 46 pounds; May 30, 59 pounds; June 
6, 68 pounds; June 13, 84 pounds. He ate May 23 to 
May 30 15 pounds corn and 60 quarts skim-milk; the 
next week 13 pounds corn and 70 quarts skim-mlik; 
the third week 16 pounds corn and 70 pounds milk. 
I suspect the rats get quite a slice of his corn, as 
there are plenty of them about, and it seems to dis¬ 
appear largely at night. I often find kernels carried 
into the next pen. where Billy could not possibly put 
it. His mate, who gets no milk, but all the grain feed 
she wants, is growing more slowly, and eating much 
less. She gets wheat middlings and hominy chop, 
equal parts, fed dry, with clean water for drink. Her 
record follows: May 23, weight 33 pounds; May 30, 
33 pounds, nine pounds feed; June 6, 38 pounds, 11 
pounds feed; June 13, 44 pounds, 16 pounds feed. I 
am greatly surprised at the small amount of water 
which she drinks; not to exceed three quarts every 
24 hours these hot June days. This probably explains 
her failure to increase in weight the first week, since 
she had been slop-fed for two weeks previous to May 
EISHKR COLD STORAGE SYSTEM Kie. 175. 
23, and was probably well filled with water at first 
weighing. Her feed costs $1.25 per 100, and at mar¬ 
ket rates for feed and pork, her growth for past two 
weeks shows a profit of about 100 per cent. I now 
purpose putting the wheat middlings in one box, and 
the hominy chop in another, giving her a chance to 
mix it to suit herself, as Billy does his corn and skim- 
milk. Perhaps we can learn something from her. A 
box of bone meal will also be placed in her pen. 
NURSING CHICKS.—A reader wishes to know how 
long I keep my chicks confined in the small wire- 
covered yards or frames connected with the brooders. 
Usually about six or seven weeks. At that age they 
can get along without artificial heat (in warm weath¬ 
er) and are removed to the small colony brooder 
COOPER SYSTEM OF REFRIGERATION. Fio. 176. 
houses, and given free range. How do I teach the bens 
to know their own homes, and return to them at 
night? Nothing easier, when you go about it in the 
right way. Hens soon become accustomed to their 
surroundings. The grounds immediately surrounding 
their sleeping quarters, usually about 10 to 15 rods, 
become familiar to them. It is almost impossible to 
get them to occupy new sleeping quarters, unless far 
enough removed from the old ones, so that they do 
not strike their old haunts in their rambles from the 
new quarters. In removing young pullets from the 
brooder houses to the laying houses, this fact is kept 
in mind. They are kept shut in for a couple of days, 
and let out for the first run, only a few minutes be¬ 
fore sundown. This insures their not roaming far 
away from the new home before it is night. They 
can be depended on to go home to roost, until again 
carried away to quarters too far removed for them 
to strike the old haunts in their rambles. 
o. w. MAPES. 
THE PROPERTY RIGHTS OF A FARMER. 
Protection Against Birds and Animals. 
I have read with much interest the several opinions 
published in your columns upon the rights of farm¬ 
ers to protect their property from depredations by 
wild animals. The Attorney-General of New Hamp¬ 
shire refers to a decision which seems to me to take 
the correct view of the subject. In effect it says that 
the State has not deprived the farmer of the right to 
protect his property, therefore the State is under no 
obligation to pay damages. I cannot help thinking 
the same conclusion would be reached in any State 
where the Constitution or Bill of Rights limits the 
power of the law-makers. I should infer from the 
reply of the Attorney-General of Ohio that there is 
no such limiting instrument in Ohio, as he says: 
“Any individual whose rights seem to have been cur¬ 
tailed by the provisions of the law must yield to its 
provisions, and can have no redress.” Poor Ohioans, 
who have no rights guaranteed to them! Regarding 
the “few cherries which the robins may eat” my ex¬ 
perience is that from four trees of sweet cherries set 
about 20 years ago, and which have made good 
growth, I feel sure we have never gathered in all the 
years four quarts of good ripe cherries. One tree of 
May Duke that was full of fruit in 1900, having ap¬ 
parently nearly a bushel of fruit on it, in less than 48 
hours after the fruit reddened, and before any of it 
was ripe, bad not a red cherry left. I have one tree, 
which bears very sour red fruit, which the birds will 
not eat until fully ripe. From that tree we some¬ 
times get some fruit by gathering promptly as soon 
as it is usable. I have two vines of Delaware grapes 
of which the birds are very fond, and one year when 
laden with not less than 60 pounds of fruit I did not 
get a single whole cluster of ripe fruit. Other varie¬ 
ties do not suffer so much, but Brighton is very bad¬ 
ly damaged. 
Concerning the suppression of insect pests by birds, 
I think the current teachings of the 
time are erroneous. The greatest assist¬ 
ance man receives in this line is from 
predaceous insects. Birds do not dis¬ 
criminate between insects injurious to 
vegetation and predaceous insects. If 
in feeding they take say 20 of the form¬ 
er to one of the latter their helpfulness 
to the farmer would be not certain. The 
fact is, they feed in such an indiscrimi¬ 
nate way that it is doubtful whether 
birds ever seriously affect the balance 
between injurious and predaceous in¬ 
sects. 
Respecting the game laws which call¬ 
ed out these remarks, they are evidently 
made, not for the greatest good of the 
greatest number, but to cater to the 
pleasure of a comparative few who wish 
to engage in the ennobling sport of 
slaughter. Some of the animals pro¬ 
tected are of no economical use, and are 
really only pests whose total extinction 
would be a decided public benefit. The 
rahbit is one such. The deer, too, over 
which so much sentiment is lavished, 
might become extinct, and no one ex¬ 
cept the hunter for sport would feel that 
his going was a loss. I am speaking 
now of people in settled and civilized 
communities. It puzzles me to under¬ 
stand the line of reasoning which leads 
people to pass laws for the encourage¬ 
ment of a pastime which seeks pleasure 
in slaughtering. If the slaughtering was 
done to suppress injurious animals (in¬ 
jurious to man) I might see reason in 
it, but the game laws protect certain 
animals not as a needed food supply, 
but that their destruction may afford pleasure to a 
few hunters. monroe morse. 
Massachusetts. 
R. N.-Y.—In this country birds are seldom plentiful 
enough to do serious damage to large areas of fruit. 
Those who have but a small patch of berries or grapes 
or two or three choice cherry trees suffer most. Much 
of this loss may be prevented by covering with inex¬ 
pensive netting. Common mosquito cloth is a fair 
protection for a berry bed or grapevine, and most of 
the fruit on a small cherry tree may be saved by the 
use of a more substantial net. In England, where 
there are many more birds in proportion to the fruit, 
plans are made to cover even large areas of fruit 
crops with nets, which are extensively advertised in 
the farm and garden papers. 
