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POULTRY OBSERVATIONS 3] 
No. 9 house also is supposed to be warm; that is, it is built 
on the scratching shed plan, and the room in which the birds 
roost and lay is covered with paroid paper. The scratching 
shed has no curtain, simply a 2-inch wire front, and the open- 
ing between these two rooms was never closed. 
There were eighteen houses similar to No. 9, all containing 
American varieties. They were fed in litter instead of hopper, 
but were given no moistened mashes, nor did they have free 
range, but half of them had access to their small yards where 
they could walk out or eat snow at their pleasure. One-third 
of both those with access to snow and those confined were 
given warm water twice daily, another third had cold water put 
in their fountains early every morning, while the remainder 
were given snow when it could be secured and cold water the 
rest of the time. Table No. 16 shows the daily egg yield in per 
cent. of each of these pens. In Table No. 17 will be seen the 
temperature of No. 9 house, and that for the eighteen similar 
houses would be about the same. This house was found much 
harder to ventilate or dry out; the ceiling was always damp. 
The temperature was higher during December and January 
than in Nos. 5, 6, 28, 29, and 30, still over half the males’ 
combs frosted, and there was in some pens a decided drop both 
in eggs and fertility just after each severe frost. 
Early in February the windows were taken out, and cotton 
cloth was used instead; after that there was no more trouble 
from moisture. The houses were a little colder, but the birds 
suffered less from the cold and appeared considerably brighter. 
It will be noticed that in pen 14 the egg yield practically 
stopped every time snow was used, while in pen 12, which 
were birds of same variety and age but of a different strain, 
there was a noticeable increase. No. 14 is the only pen that 
shows a decrease in eggs every time snow was used. It was 
noticed, however, that in all the other pens when snow was 
given there was generally an extra amount of feed required, 
although the increase in eggs more than paid for it. 
The fertility of the entire flock was tested daily, and while 
