The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1911-03-03
COLONY HOUSES FOR POULTRY
Where the Plan Prevails Poultry Keeping
Is Most Successful

Where the Plan Prevails Poultry Keeping
Is Most Successful
The main requirements for good
poultry house are good ventilation and
protection from storms and cold winds.
Hens will not lay when weather condi-
tons prevent them from scratching and
exercise. Many poultry houses have
proved failures because the variations in
night and day temperature were too
great. Prominent authorities on the
building of poultry houses state ventila-
ton can best be furnished by leaving
one end Of the house open, or covered
with burlap or canvas, using no glass
windows unless necessary for light.
The idea of building warm house
should be abandoned. 1t is shelter
that is needed. The house should be
built in such way that the fowls will
not roost near the open front, where
they would be exposed to winds; nor
should it face the prevailing winds. A
long house is more expensive to build,
for given capacity, than one more
nearly square. A long, narrow house
is also a cold house, having more ex-
posed surface for a given capacity than
a square house.
The size of house necessary for a
certain flock will vary in different sec
tons. Where there is little or no snow
and where the fowls can be out doors
every day in the year, two square feet
of floor space per fowl will be ample.
Where the climate is such the fowls
will seek shelter part of the year, rather
than 60 out doors on the range, consid-
cradle more space should be provided,
say four to five square feet per fowl
The idea should be not to crowd them
so much their activity will be interfered
with. Whether the shelter is provided
by charging the house or by building
cheap scratching sheds is immaterial.
Two quare feet per fowl, or even less,
is ample for roosting quarters.
Roosts should be made low or near
the ground-not higher than two feet.
There are several reasons for this. Fowls
of the heavier breed cannot fly high,
and those OF the lighter breeds fire.
quently injure the soles of their feet in
jumping from high perches. Roosts
should be made all the same heights,
for if they are made some higher than
others the birds will flock to the highest
ones and crowd, which is undesirable.
When dropping boards are used they
should be low down, to permit of easy
cleaning. They should be made Of
matched lumber and be twenty inches
wide for one perch and three feet wide
for two perches, the first perch placed
at least ten inches from the wall. A
good roost may be made from material
2x2 inches, slightly rounded on edges.
Poultry keeping is most successful
where the colony system prevails. The
colony system means the housing Of
fowls in small houses, preferably porta-
Bile, where the fowls have free range.
The chief advantage is the fowls are
more active or buster than when con-
fined in yards; second, there is less
danger from outbreaks of disease, as it
is possible to keep the houses on clean
ground by moving them occasionally;
third, the fowls require less feeding and
care, as they pick up considerable food
on the range. Another advantage of
this system is the fowls will rid the
farm of many injurious insects. Then
the colony system will fit in with crop
rotation, and for part of the year the
fowls will live on the stubble fields.