The Corning Egg Farm book, by Corning himself

by Edward Corning; Gardner Corning

No. 1. Brooder House, Incubator and Sprouted Oats Cellars

This building is 264 feet in length, and consists really of two buildings. When this structure was first erected it was sixteen feet wide and fifty feet in length. The Incubator Cellar is entirely of concrete construction, with a Brooder House one story in height above it. The floor joists were all beam filled, making the building rat proof. The second year it became necessary to enlarge the Brooder House, and an extension was built, sixty-eight feet in length, and set up on cedar posts, with concrete filled in on top of the sills between the floor joists, making this part of the building also rat-proof.

After using this Brooder House and Incubator Cellar for three seasons a still further enlargement became an absolute necessity. Sixteen feet has been, and still is, the standard width of Laying Houses on The Corning Egg Farm. It has been found, however, with the Brooder House, an additional width is desirable in order to give the chicks more roomy runs when confined by bad weather to the House alone. Mainly for this reason, the 1911 addition to the Brooder House has been made twenty-two feet in width. This new building is 146 feet in length. It is joined on to the old building in such a way that the alley-way merely widens at the point of connection, thus making one continuous House.

The interior arrangement of a four foot alley-way, the entire length of the building, along the north wall, greatly facilitates the feeding, watering, and general care of the chicks, without disturbing them by passing through the pens.

The raised hover floor starts at the south side of this alley-way, and is raised about a foot so as to allow the passing underneath of the hot water trunk line, with its perfect insulation. Attached to this hover floor, by hinges, is an inclined runway, which is raised or lowered by a cord running through pulley wheels and fastened by cleats to the north wall.

The division wires between the pens are of inch mesh, four feet high, brought down to a ten inch board which is securely fastened to the floor.

The ventilation is acquired by the use of V-shaped window drops, placed just under the plate, full detailed drawing of which is given in the back of this Book. The bottom of the windows, on the south front of the building, are three feet above the floors, and these windows are forty-four inches in length and thirty-six inches in width. They are hung at the top, and are opened and closed by the same sort of device used in churches for the “Cathedral” window. The holes in the fastening irons are about two inches apart, allowing the window to be firmly held open to any degree desired.

There is a slide board at the back of the hover, which is easily raised, materially assisting in the quick and perfect cleansing of the hover floor. Hanging above this, and using the slide board as a sill, is a gate which extends to the height of the wire division, and swings out, giving the attendant ready access to the hover, drinking cups, etc.

The whole Brooder House is heated by hot water coils, extending along the entire length of the north wall of the building. These are of two inch pipe, and in the sixteen feet part of the building there are six, while in the twenty-two foot extension there are eight pipes.

As stated, the Brooder House is built over the Incubator and Sprouted Oats Cellars. The Sprouted Oats Cellar is entirely of concrete, and the floor slopes to one point, where drains carry off the water, allowing the frames to slowly drain themselves, and preventing the oats from rotting from an over supply of moisture.

Access is given to the Incubator Cellar by a vestibule in which are located broad stairways, enabling one to go from the Cellar to the Brooder House without going outdoors.

The heater room occupies the first 30 feet of this Cellar, and is divided from the incubator room proper by an eight inch concrete wall. In this heater room is the large hot water boiler which heats the Brooder House, above. There are also two automatic heaters, controlling the trunk line pipes for the heating of the air passing up under the hovers in the Brooder House. The incubator heaters also stand in this room, the pipes passing through the division wall, connecting with the incubators on the other side.

The floor is smooth surface concrete, there being a gentle slope in the heater room all to one corner, where a drain carries off the water used in flushing the floor. This same arrangement exists also in the Incubator Cellar proper, allowing the hose to be used in flooding the floor twice a day to give the proper amount of moisture for incubation.

The concrete blocks used in the construction of this Cellar are what is known as rock faced, and the face is on the inside, pointed up in black. The floor joists overhead are dressed lumber, and are painted in the following manner: the priming coat is almost pure oil with just enough lead to give it a whitish tinge; the next coat is dead white, flat finish, and the third is white enamel of the best stock obtainable. The incubators are finished in the same way, allowing the whole Cellar to be literally scrubbed with a brush.

This Cellar has no duplicate, anywhere.