1906. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
79 
MAPES, THE HEN MAN. 
House for Large Flock. 
My suggestion of the superiority of one large hen 
barn, over a number of small buildings and flocks, 
seems to have aroused much interest. Here is one of 
the many letters received on the subject: 
Will Mapes, the hen man, give us possible dimensions for 
a large poultry house, two story, for say a flock of 500 
hens? Why not have one alley-way between roosting tables 
in upper floor instead of one between and two around at 
the backs? Why not a long, 14-foot wide house? That 
would give five-foot wide roosting tables* (two rows of 
perches) on either side of a four-foot passage-way. Drop¬ 
pings could easily be scraped off into a barrow from both 
tables. ITow about getting the sun into a 30-foot wide 
house sufficiently in Winter? The large flock idea is the 
economical and ideal if it can be made practical. I wish 
it could. A - M - v * 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
I recommended an alley both in the center and at 
both sides, because I was speaking of a building 30 feet 
wide. With only one alley at the center of such a wide 
house, the roosting tables would be too wide for con¬ 
venience in cleaning. Should the hens need to be 
caught or handled for any purpose while on the perches 
it would be desirable to be able to reach every portion 
of the perches without climbing upon the 
tables. In a house only 14 feet wide a 
single alley at the center would answer 
every purpose. In the lower story, to be 
used only in the daytime, I should want 
windows in abundance on both sides, and 
at least one end, which would make am¬ 
ple light even in a 30-foot wide building. 
The old idea that a henhouse must face 
the south or southeast, and get all the 
light from one side, need not be adhered 
to where the hens are to go to the upper 
story at night. For a flock of 500, a 
14-foot wide house and about 60 to 70 
feet long might be all right, but I should 
prefer the same space in a more compact 
form, say 24 x 36. I believe that will 
give ample room for a flock of 500. 
Good Hens in Close Quarters. 
The following letter under date of 
January 6, is very opportune in this dis¬ 
cussion, and corroborates my position so 
effectually that I take pleasure in pre¬ 
senting it: 
On page 291, R. N.-Y. of April 2, 1904, 
you give a clipping from “Farm Poultry” in 
which they challenge you to try to winter 
200 hens in 20 x 20 house; also you give 
Air. Turner’s experience. I have watched the 
.•olumns of The R. N.-Y. hut have never seen 
any further reference to that matter, whether 
you tried it last Winter or not. I ain espe¬ 
cially interested in that because I am winter¬ 
ing over 200 hens in a house 12 x 40, divided 
into three pens, but I leave the intervening 
doors open all the time, so it is in reality all 
one room. I have in there 170 May and June 
hatched pullets, 30 old hens, two roosters 
and 15 chicks that were hatched October 2. 
I am at present getting -from 70 to 85 eggs 
a day; not a sick one in the lot 
since I moved them on December 1; 
even the little chicks making a good growth, 
although they get no extra care whatever. 
Last Winter 1 wintered 100 hens and four 
roosters in an old henhouse 9% by 19 inside 
dimensions, and in the three Winter, and 
two Sprin~ months, December, January, Feb¬ 
ruary, March and April, they laid 6.256 eggs, 
and I only IosP-one hen and that by accident 
(her head got caught in feed box and she 
strangled), f ha^e ICO birds (70 pullets 
and 30 hens in same house now, and they 
are laying 25 to 35 eggs daily and rapidly 
gaining; all in perfect health except one 
a swelled eye, but as her breath is 
(no odor) I don’t think it roup. I 
to tell us whether his hens are of the Mediterranean 
class or some of the heavier breeds. 
The man who built and owns the houses on the farm 
which my son Jesse is renting thought he had them 
crowded with 400 hens. Jesse is keeping 900 this 
Winter in the same houses, and getting much better 
returns in eggs than the owner got last Winter. This 
cannot be because they have been “bred to lay” better, 
because they are the identical “Immaculate strain of 
pure White Leghorns,” many of them being the same 
birds, only one year older. The owner occasionally 
looks in on them and sees 20 to 30 eggs in the nests 
of a flock of 60 birds, with the remark that “they have 
no business to be laying at all, they are so crowded.” 
A Barn Heater. 
Will you explain more about your barn heater that you 
told about in The R. N.-Y. of December 30. Where is it 
made, and does it heat room as well as hot water? I have 
just changed from steam power to gasoline to run my sepa¬ 
rator; we have a small creamery at the barn, and every¬ 
thing is washed there. I would like about one barrel of 
boiling hot water per day, and would like heater to warm 
the room 15 x 20. Does it burn wood as well as coal? 
Peru, N. Y. h. t. t. 
Our heater is of the same pattern as those that are 
used to heat the water in the sectional pipe brooders. 
r 
... 
v ~‘' 
- • v- : '. ” 
A BUNCH OF BABY WADDLERS. Fig. 35. 
ANGORA GOATS HEADED FOR A CALIFORNIA PASTURE. Fig. 36. 
that has 
all right 
keep dry mash in 
hoppers before them all the while; all the oats and buck¬ 
wheat they will scratch out of deep litter and three pecks 
of ear corn ; wet mash one p. m. every other day of oats 
ground, buckwheat middlings and coarse bran. The dry 
aash Is the same equal parts with 10 per cent beef scrap, 
tlso one peck of garden beets, raw, every day. These they 
ire very fond of, and would eat many more if I would feed 
them. The beets are fed on nails. 1 am engaged in market 
gardening, but poultry pays so well that I am going to 
double my number of layers the coming year. I have a 
360-egg incubator, which I had very good success with last 
season, getting 307 chickens from 346 fertile eggs, my 
second hatch. I only lost 15 of them the first two months. 
The 15 chicks were hatched by two hens that got out of 
yard and stole nests under barn, hatched only one day apart. 
Sharon Springs, N. Y. w. m. k. 
Here is a man who is making a phenomenal success 
with only about two feet of floor space per hen, while 
I am allowing three feet per hen, counting the two 
stories. His method of feeding is worthy of careful 
study in view of the results he is obtaining. The first 
thing that attracts attention is the fact that he fairly 
stuffs them. First he keeps dry feed in hoppers before 
them all the time. In addition to that they have all 
the oats and buckwheat they care to scratch for, and 
still they eat three pecks of ear corn daily. How are 
our “too fat” friends going to reconcile such feeding 
with such results in eggs and health? W. M. K. fails 
Most of the large incubator companies 'll an die them. 
The fire pot being surrounded by a double wall forming 
a hollow space through which the water circulates, not 
as much heat is thrown out into the room as in an ordi¬ 
nary stove. By connecting it with a metal tank instead 
of a wooden tank or barrel, heat would be radiated 
from the tank, thus warming the room effectually. The 
bottom and corners of the tank might be protected 
with wood, thus making a strong and serviceable tank, 
and still have plenty of radiating surface, o. w. mapes. 
seen ice kept for a small family by simply driving two 
posts in the ground 12 feet apart, and each 12 feet from 
an old building. The ground was covered with saw¬ 
dust for the dept of a foot. A layer of ice was placed 
upon the sawdust, boards packed around it, sawdust 
a foot thick between the ice and the boards, then an¬ 
other layer of ice, then more boards and more sawdust, 
and so on. Three tiers of ice piled up like this and 
covered with another foot of sawdust, and three feet 
above the sawdust, a roof composed of old boards and 
slabs, to keep the sawdust dry, furnished plenty of ice 
for quite a large family. The space between the ice 
and the roof must be left open to allow for a circula¬ 
tion of air. This is important. A good circulation of 
air over the top, a good drainage, so that the water from 
the melted ice may be freely carried off, a foot of good 
dry well-tamped sawdust all around the ice, will keep 
it as well as it can be kept, even with the most lavish 
expenditure. Of course the greater the bulk of ice 
stored, the better it will keep, and if the amount stored 
is large enough it is possible to build houses with two 
or three dead-air spaces that will keep ice well without 
having any sawdust in contact with the ice. Many of 
the large icehouses along the Hudson River are built 
without any dead-air spaces at all, neither do they use 
any sawdust. They are sealed up on the 
inside of the studding with nothing on 
the outside, looking like a barn built 
wrong side out. A little salt hay is 
scattered over the top of the ice, and that 
is all. When the ice is removed the 
buildings quickly dry out. 
But this is practicable only where large 
quantities are to be stored, and it is the 
ice supply of the small farmer that we 
have in mind just now. One bent of the 
shed can be utilized or a building cheaply 
constructed that will answer the purpose 
equally as well as a more expensive struc¬ 
ture. In fact better, for an icehouse is a 
short-lived building at best, and it is use¬ 
less to spend very much money on it. 
Ice a foot thick is easier to handle, but 
I think 14 to 16 inches keeps better. Ice 
that has been sawed will pack closer, and 
consequently keep better than ice that has 
been plowed and barred off. A cross-cut 
saw with large teeth or a regular ice-saw 
are the best tools to use. We can usually 
hire it sawed here at from a cent and a 
half to two cents per cake, depending 
upon the thickness, and at that price it 
would hardly pay to buy the tools neces¬ 
sary to cut it by horse power. It seldom 
takes more than a day to harvest our ice 
supply and we think it one of the easiest 
to get luxuries we have. The greatest 
amount of pains should be taken in stor¬ 
ing your ice if you would have it keep 
well. Every crack and crevice between 
the cakes should be tamped full of saw¬ 
dust, and it should be watched carefully 
during the warm weather, and wherever 
the melting ice has left any vacant places 
these must be kept full by tramping the 
sawdust into them, as an air-hole from 
the bottom or side will melt the ice very 
rapidly. I knew a person who was so 
particular to have his packed snugly that 
he had them placed in the building in 
exactly the same order they occupied 
while on the lake. That probably is 
rather more pains than is necessary; still 
it will pay to saw the cakes as straight 
as possible so that they will pack closely and leave the 
least amount of space between them. This lessens waste 
from thawing very materially. homer a. gallup. 
•0.7 ' 
ICE FOR THE SMALL DAIRY. 
Unless you have water that never gets warmer than 
44 degrees, ice on a dairy farm is a necessity. The 
cream from the separator must be cooled below 50 de¬ 
grees to make good butter, and if it is necessary to cool 
the cream to get it to right temperature for churning 
there is nothing better than cracked ice for this pur¬ 
pose. It takes but a small amount of ice to furnish a 
sufficiency for a small dairy. A dozen cakes 18 by 22 
and 16 inches thick will easily furnish all I need for 
a dairy of 10 cows, and make ice cream twice a week 
for Summer boarders, and occasionally for church en¬ 
tertainments. But in order to have those dozen cakes 
and perhaps a few more for contingencies, we are obliged 
to pack away 75 or 80, depending upon the method of 
saving it. Ice can be saved in various ways. I have 
KEEPING APPLES ON THE FARM. 
R.’s question on keeping apples, page 927, opens up a 
very interesting subject to many small growers, who 
after carefully gathering their stock of good apples, find 
by the end of November there has been something 
wrong in the storing. I think many of The R. N.-Y. 
readers would be pleased to learn more of how the 
successful farmer or small grower handles his fruit: 
say the average time, method of picking, in what put, 
where stored at time, also about the average day tem¬ 
perature. If the fruit, when picked, is put into a brick 
cellar with cement floor, on north side of building, where 
in October and early November the day temperature 
ranges from 50 to 60, would it be best to close the 
three windows all the tjrpe, or to open them only at 
night? If the fruit is put directly into barrels, 
headed and stored under trees or shed in the open, does 
it not decay somewhat, making it necessary to look over 
the barrels before they are stored in cellars for the 
Winter? j. h. 
New York. 
R. N.-Y.—We would like to have farmers tell us 
how > they keep fruit over Winter. Some depend on Ben 
Davis and Missing Link to carry them through—others 
catv keep the best. How? 
