THE WILLOW WALL POULTRY FARM. 
The Business Hen in West Virginia. 
This practical and dividend paying poultry plant 
was built and equipped five years ago. It is located 
in the beautiful valley of the South Branch of the 
Potomac River. The “Old Fields” was a tract of 
some 1,200 acres of rich bottom lands 
which the Indians were using for their 
gardening and corn raising when the 
white man first came into the valley. 
The valley is shut in by rugged forest- 
covered mountains, which give it a 
very picturesque setting. Mr. A. R. 
McNeill, the proprietor of Willow Wall 
Farm, described to me about as follows 
the launching of the poultry proposition : 
He had a large farm, which had for the 
past 150 years been devoted to raising 
and fattening heavy beef cattle. I do 
not just remember how long the farm 
has been a possession of the McNeill 
family, but the fine old mansion (Fig. 51) 
was built by his grandfather in the year 
1820. It is still in fine repair and a 
comfortable, pleasant and roomy home. 
Mr. McNeill has equipped it with a first- 
class system of hot water heat, which in 
connection with the several old-time 
fireplaces, makes it possible to defy old 
Jack Frost. He has also installed a 
first-class water system and bathroom. 
Owing to changed conditions the cat¬ 
tle-feeding business had become an un¬ 
satisfactory way of disposing of the 
grain crops as well as a poor money¬ 
maker. Their attention was turned to 
other ways of making the farm pay. 
The whole family gave the matter of 
starting in the poultry business a very 
careful study. They did some traveling 
about to distant places to visit large 
poultry plants, and to find out what 
other people were accomplishing in the 
way of making poultry pay. After de¬ 
ciding that the chances of success were 
good if one kept good fowls and cared 
for them, they settled down to get ready 
for business. 
Mr. McNeill planned his poultry 
buildings and location very carefully, 
much stress being laid on having things 
easy to care for, and equipment that 
required as little attention as it was 
possible to give and still get good re¬ 
sults. The result of the good planning 
is very evident to one going about over 
the plant. The amount of labor required 
properly to care for the birds in these 
buildings has been cut down to the low¬ 
est point. The laying hens are housed 
in a long two-story building. The 
lower story is divided into rooms with 
wire netting, each room being 15 feet 
square, that being the inside width of 
the house. These rooms are well lighted 
by large windows; each room is to ac¬ 
commodate 50 birds. The whole house 
will accommodate 1,4'00 head. The 
roosts are light and neatly arranged, and 
Hang on wires, and are easily hooked 
back out of the way when the droppings 
boards are being cleaned. The drop¬ 
pings boards are also hung on wire and 
can be readily removed at any time. 
In each room is a self-feeder that sup¬ 
plies most of the feed in shape of dry mash, cracked 
grain, screenings and such feeds. Oyster shell and 
grit are also handy. There are several bins in the 
walls of each room for whole grains, principally wheat 
and corn, which are fed in the litter each day; also 
a good deal of Alfalfa and clover hay is fed. The 
water is supplied by a pipe which runs the whole 
length of the building, and there are valves in each 
room from which the water pans are filled. The 
wooden floors are not less than two feet above ground 
at any place. The floor is kept covered with straw. 
Nests are located about the room in plenty, and are 
there to be used. Simplicity of construction has been 
considered, and also the saving of labor, which is an 
important feature. 
At the entrance end of the henhouse 
is a large grain storage building that will 
house a year’s supply of grain of the 
,various kinds. In this building is a feed 
grinder to grind the chicken feed. A 
15 horse-power gasoline traction engine 
is used for power; this engine is also 
used for other purposes about the farm. 
A good deal of grain is purchased, espe¬ 
cially wheat, and some corn. Wheat 
does not seem to yield very heavily in 
that section of West Virginia. The feed 
is distributed through the buildings in 
the following manner: Along one side 
of the second floor runs a narrow-gauge 
railroad, starting in the grain room and 
extending to the farthest end of the hen¬ 
house. On this track is a car, the body 
of which is divided into four or five 
bins. This car is loaded with the va¬ 
rious kinds of feed and then run down 
along the track, and the grain and feed 
put into spouts that lead down to the 
self-feeders and bins in the feeding 
rooms below. Each spout is labeled 
with the kind of feed that is to be put 
into it. By this excellent system it does 
not take a professional to do the feeding, 
nor does it take a giant to stand the 
strain. This feeding is done once a 
week. Along down the other side of this 
second story floor is another set of bins, 
in which is stored the dry earth which 
is used on the droppings boards. A 
handy spout carries the earth to the 
rinsing place below the hen rooms. The 
writer happened to be at the farm when 
these bins were filled last Fall, and it 
takes a lot of earth for a year’s supply, 
and it took two teams and wagons and 
seven or eight men more than a day to 
put in the amount needed for a year. 
The droppings boards are cleaned off 
once a week. A manure spreader is 
driven alongside the building and the 
droppings are shoveled into it and taken 
direct to the fields. The floor litter is 
only changed occasionally. 
Single Comb White Leghorn chickens 
exclusively are kept at Willow Wall 
Farm. The original stock came from 
one of the best White Leghorn farms in 
the land. The present stock has all ap¬ 
pearance of having been kept up to the 
mark for quality. Each Autumn 200 of 
the best old hens are selected for the 
next season’s breeding pens. They are 
housed in a separate building during the 
Winter and the eggs from them are 
hatched out in large-sized incubators. 
These incubators occupy a large room 
in the cellar of the dwelling house. The 
young chickens are taken direct from the 
incubators to colony houses, 58 of which 
are located in a 10-acre apple orchard 
which adjoins the grounds of the main 
poultry house. These colony houses are 
about GxlO feet in size, and seven feet 
FRONT VIEW OF WILLOW WALL POULTRY HOUSES. Fig. 49. 
BREEDING FLOCK AND REAR VFEW OF BUILDINGS. Fig. 50. 
THE HOME AT WILLOW WALL POULTRY FARM. Fig. 51. 
