Draughts the Stumbling Block
As economy of space and labor is one of the main factors in getting a commercial profit where poultry is operated with, the large flock system appealed most strongly to The Corning Egg Farm. Long houses, under one roof, without divisions, had been attempted by others, and the endeavor to discover the reason for the failures, where this had been attempted, was a very interesting study. It was found that the main stumbling block in houses of this type was draughts. To eliminate the draughts was the problem we then undertook to solve. It was found that if the houses were built in sections of twenty feet, and the partitions which divided the house into roosting closets were extended twelve inches beyond the dropping boards, and were carried from the floor to the roof, the air currents were broken up, and the difficulty of draughts was overcome.
Houses, as we believed in constructing them, were expensive, unless it was possible to carry a very large number of layers successfully in them. In studying the two hundred and twenty-five pullets as they worked contentedly in the No. 1 Laying House, which was but twelve feet wide, we became convinced that it was perfectly possible in a house sixteen feet wide by one hundred and sixty feet in length to carry fifteen hundred layers. This, to be sure, allowed the hen only a little over two square feet of floor space, with the dropping boards included. But, as we figured it, the hen also had the entire house for floor space, and, while it is true that fourteen hundred and ninety-nine sisters were her near neighbors, they all enjoyed the same large space to roam in. A house, then, of this size, accommodating fifteen hundred layers, was not an expensive house per bird, and, when you consider that the construction was such that the up-keep was practically nothing, it became not only not an expensive house, but really a very cheap one.
The success of the fifteen hundred layers in one house proved itself at once, and we never have seen the slightest necessity for altering the plan of the Laying House, as we first laid it out.