Norwich bulletin., 1915-07-08
POULTRY HousEs.
Labor Saved By Big FIeogs-pisad- vantage Comes Through Disease Danger.

There has been much discussion in the past few years with reference to the advantages of keeping hens In carried the large lock proposition to an extreme. many keeping as many as 1900 birds in the flock This system has some advantages, but also many disadvantages which seem end.
 The chief advantaee in keeping hens in iocks of from 300 to 1s00 is an immense saving of labor in the poultry house construction There is much less opening and closing of doors. filling of hoppers and drinking fountains which to the poultryman
 with 1000 or more hens is an item of expense that amounts to considerable
 in the course of year. Furthermore,
 it Is possible to keep more hens in a given space when they are kept in extremely large hocks. Forty Leg horns, Anconas or Hamburgs can be
 kept in a space of 100 square feet and
 30 Rhode Island Reds, Plymouth
 Rocks. Wyandottes or other birds of similar size.
 Some disadvantages seem to offset
 these good features of the big flock unit. Drafts. caused by no partitions | in the open-front houses permit the winds to come in one opening and pass out through the next on the same | side Of the building. This frequently causes colds, and similar diseases, es- pecfally during the early fall and win- l ter, and with so many birds in the | flock, 1t is very difficult to observe the | start of disease because of the ab- solute impossibflity of noticing every | individual bird as the poultryman
 passes through the house. As result | of this. disease gets a strong foot
 hold before steps are taken to check
 It. and frequently heavy losses occur | in large hockS Lack of individual
 care and attention also results in de-
 creased egg production, and it is com | mon knowledge among poultrymen l that hens must have careful attention,
 and this attention must be directed
 toward the individual rather than toward the flock as a unit.
 Hens kept in large hocks can easily become lost in their own houses end | when bird cannot find her regular nest for laying her egg and her regu- l lar position on the roost, she is not | contented and will not do her best in
 egg production. Birds kept in fiocks
 of 10 to 50 will give much higher egg production because of closer attention
 to detail on the part of the poultry
 man. This increase in production is
 not sufficient to pay for the increase | in the cost of labor and housing, ex- cept during the breeding season, when | eggs have an abnormal value. There | is happy medium between these ex- | tremeS which will result in the largest possible profit, and that is the flock
 of from 100 to 300 hens in one pen, | in which there is a saving of labor
 and cost of house construction, almost 1 equal to the larger units, and an egg production and close attention to in | dividual hens nearly as great as that | in the very small f1ocks.
 The nearer square a building is the cheaper its cost of construction and
 with the open-front house which Is so
 generally advisable, it is most desira- l Die that birds on the roosts be re-
 moved as far as possible from the
 front of the building, as a protection from drafts and cold winds. These are very good arguments for a house l Is or 20 feet in width and there are no logical reasons why a man should l build narrower house. The old argu- | ment of lack of sunlight in wide house is a fallacy and 1t has been proved by experiment that in a house
 20 feet wide with windows six feet in
 height, facing the south. the sun will
 during the months of December and
 that it should. On the other hand,
 there is considerable amount of
 space in the house which is always cool, because the sun does not reach
 it, and birds that are kept confined
 in houses most of the time or that do
 require comfortable quarters inside
 house should be cool in summer as T 1- hot wA4 A~ l. -&.--