Vol. LXV. No. 2954. 
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 8, 1906. 
WEEKLY, $1.00 PER YEAR 
WO THOUSAND HENS IN ONE HOUSE. 
Plan for a Big Hennery. 
During the past year various articles purporting to de¬ 
scribe a house for keeping 2,000 hens have appeared. The 
subject is of much interest to many, and we have arranged 
with Dr. B. Burr, of Maryland, to describe the house in 
which such a flock of hens is kept. 
The “Burr 2,000-hen one-man house,” the writer be¬ 
lieves, is a solution of the problem of keeping poultry 
on a paying scale. The superstition that hens kept in 
flocks larger than 20 to 30 would not give as good 
results as the smaller flocks, giving 10 square feet of 
house room and 100 square feet of yard room as the 
smallest area compatible with good results, is abso¬ 
lutely false, being based entirely upon theory, while the 
basic law is that results arc governed by the cubic feet 
of clean, fresh air available for each bird. While hens 
require warmth only during four months of the year, 
and during the other eight 
months all the active air 
they can get, most poul¬ 
try houses are constructed 
to keep them warm for 
12 months. The further 
disadvantage of a divided 
house is that the condi¬ 
tions of light, heat and 
air are not alike in any 
two pens. In regard to 
yards, “unlimited” healthy 
range for one thousand 
hens can be had in a yard 
100 feet square, provided 
this yard is kept plowed 
and sown to green feed as 
often as it becomes bare. 
As • a matter of economy 
in green feed and labor 
three or four such yards 
are attached to each 
house, front, back and at 
either end in a single 
1,000-hen Iiouse, and a 
continual crop of green 
food is produced, the 
growing of which keeps 
the yards from becoming 
“sick.” The same sani¬ 
tary care of the dirt in 
the house accomplishes 
the same ends; viz., the 
dirt from the lower 
scratching floor is thrown 
to the upper roosting 
floor, and raked out grad¬ 
ually with the manure, 
thus keeping the lower floor always sweet and clean. 
I lie straw or other litter used for scratching is changed 
every few weeks and spread on the land for top-dressing. 
T he house is built long and narrow to give the most 
light and air and controllable ventilation. It is built 
in two stories to economize roof, cost and labor, and 
insure dry and airy sleeping quarters. The lower story 
front is partially enclosed with glass doors in Winter 
to keep out rain, snow and wind, and the house is 
faced a trifle to the east of southeast to give the great¬ 
est amount of sun in Winter and the least in Summer. 
I ake any unused building, preferably one that can be 
placed in a lot and faced as above, and if your studding 
is long enough put in a floor, giving head room for 
the attendant upstairs and down. If not, raise the 
building high enough from the ground to make 
the distance from ground to plate 11 or 12 feet. Set on 
posts three feet in the ground (this is the only founda¬ 
tion that is rat and mouse proof), and raise the grade of 
ground 12 inches under house, sloping away from it. 
Upstairs place a two-sash window reaching from six 
inches below the plate to the floor, every 16 feet is 
enough, and two on each end smaller and set higher up 
above roost level. Have a door in each end. Down¬ 
stairs the whole front is wired in. with a wire door 
under each window. The ends and back are tight 
with a door under each window at the ends and every 
eight feet on the back. Make the back doors opening 
alternately right and left, so that they can be partially 
opened in any wind when needed. Place 10 nest boxes 
on legs 12 inches from floor on each side, and run 
roosts not over five feet long and 22 inches apart at 
right angles to the length of building. If the building 
is wide enough (over 18 feet) this gives between each 
set of windows a set of seven roosts on each side, with 
a central passage between them for cleaning and a 
passage on each side for egg-gathering. 
The simplest roost is a piece of 2 x 2-inch, slightly 
rounded on the top, bored on the lower side half way 
into the floor. If your floor beams are 22 inches from 
centers this rod will drive into them through floor; if 
not, nail a header below floor in line of irons and bore 
one inch into header. 
In front of each north window in line of roost is a 
trap door three feet long and the width! of the space 
between floor beams. Running in from the north side 
of this opening to a support two feet from the lower 
dirt floor in the center of building is the runway, giv¬ 
ing the fowls free passage up and down. This is best 
made of siding lapped uphill to catch their feet, and 
being caught below by a notch or side can be slid up 
at night. Figuring that a hen is entitled to eight inches 
of roosting room, you can put in your building as many 
hens as your roosts will hold without fear of crowding. 
The care of two thousand hens thus housed does not 
take over four working hours a day, distributed as 
follows: At sunrise open trap doors and in cold 
weather south windows, if the day is bright. If not, 
do not open windows any more than they have been 
open all night until the sun becomes warm. Mixed 
grain is thrown in litter and water troughs filled. We 
use 10-foot galvanized four-inch gutter set in frame 12 
inches from ground, with running board six inches 
from ground and trough covered with slanting roof 
to keep hens out of water. The plumber will solder 
in ends and hole for cork. In very cold weather a 
pail of hot water is put in each trough to take off the 
chill before cold water is put in. During the morning 
the hoppers are kept filled if you use the dry feeding 
method; if not, mash is fed at 11 o’clock; then green 
food given them (cabbage, rutabagas, mangels, sugar 
beets in cold weather, lawn clippings for eight months 
in the year). At night eggs are gathered and mixed 
grain thrown in litter, and after they have gone to bed 
the house is closed up, the windows closed in accord¬ 
ance with the weather, but never tight; the water 
troughs washed clean and left empty. During cool 
weather, when it can be 
got sweet, green bone is 
ground and fed every day, 
and it is to the hen what 
silage is to the cow. The 
work being all under cov¬ 
er makes it easier to take 
thorough care of the flock, 
and your presence among 
them at all times make 
them very tame and eas¬ 
ily handled, especially if 
you trap-nest as you 
should. 
The house being light, 
airy and clean, and none 
of the work arduous, gives 
the women an opportunity 
to keep poultry on a pay¬ 
ing scale, and conducted 
in this way poultry keep¬ 
ing is essentially a wom¬ 
an’s business. 
The breeding, hatching 
and raising of 1,000 pul¬ 
lets each year to keep your 
2,000-hen house full is not 
within the scope of this 
article, but with proper ap¬ 
pliances and methods is 
just as simple and sure as 
the above. ,If you are not 
a born “chicken crank” 
avoid the business as you 
would the itch, for its at¬ 
tention to detail will drive 
you to drink, or, what is 
worse, lead you to shirk, 
fail and condemn the poultry business as a financial 
failure, but if you enjoy the work and get pleasure 
from the idiosyncracies* of your hens, then start a 
small unit and grow with them until you have reached 
your “hen-keeping” capacity. b. burr. 
Maryland. 
THE PASSING OF THE MUSKMEL0N. 
Since the well-grown and matured muskmelons have 
almost disappeared from the fruit stands and markets, 
we begin, to realize that there are few things, if any, 
that are a more general object of desire for the members 
of the family, or are more painfully missed by them than 
a supply of fine melons. Those who but a few years 
ago were accustomed to enjoying them in all their fresh¬ 
ness and lusciousness as they came directly from the gar¬ 
den, will again and again ask the question : “Are we ever 
to have any more good melons? Are there no such va¬ 
rieties as we used to have, and where are they to be 
found ?” So it now seems that for the home garden they 
GREAT BARN ON A MASSACHUSETTS DAIRY FARM. Fig. 282. 
through, and set on a three-cighths-inch iron rod driven 
