Fig. 24—The straw-loft poultry house.
In New York state, especially, the Single Combed White Leghorns have long been the preferred variety, and, as they have rather thin single combs, which are considered to be susceptible to frost in cold weather, it has been a problem to house them so that they shall be protected from freezing. Many different types of houses have been tried, some of them with a stove in one end and a long pipe running through to the chimney at the other, thirty or forty feet away; a decided disadvantage with this was the having to keep the house shut quite tight to conserve the heat, and the consequent dampness from the moisture of the breath of the birds.
To get over this difficulty diffused ventilation was devised by Mr. H. J. Blanchard, of Fairview Farm, Groton, N. Y.; this ventilation was obtained by stowing straw (or swale hay) in the loft in the gable, and this permits a slow diffusion of air upward through the cracks of the floor and out of the small doors in each end of gable. This straw-loft poultry house has been widely adopted all over the United States; a good example of a long house of this type is shown in the illustration on page 12.
Fig. 25—Ground plan.
Mr. Blanchard’s houses are forty feet long by sixteen feet wide, and divided into two pens twenty by sixteen feet each; about fifty birds are wintered in each pen. The walls of the house are made double, boarded on both sides of the studs with a dead air space between; in some cases the walls are packed with saw dust or planer shavings, at the well-known Van Dresser farm, in Cobleskill, N.Y., they are packed with straw. The floor is double boarded, with a good sheathing paper between. Overhead, on the plates, two by six inch stringers are laid, and a loose floor of rough boards, with inch to inch and a half cracks between, is laid. A one-third pitch roof is laid on shingle laths nailed to the rafters six inches apart, and on this a good sheathing paper covered with two-ply Paroid. In each gable a door is cut, as large as will swing under the roof. On the attic floor is put some twelve to fifteen inches of loose straw.
In very cold weather, when the house is tightly closed save for a muslin curtain in one or two windows of each pen, the vapor thrown off in the breath of the fowls will pass up through the cracks in the loft-floor and be absorbed in the straw above, instead of being condensed on the walls and roof in the form of frost. On mild days in winter the doors in the gable may be opened wide, or if it is very windy the door in the leeward end may be opened, which permits the air to draw through over the straw, drying it thoroughly, without any draughts upon the birds on the floor below.
In warm weather the gable doors may be left open night and day, and the draught through the loft, together with the ventilation through open doors and windows in the house below, keeps the birds cool and comfortable. These houses are thoroughly practical in every way and will be found very desirable for use on any large farm. A few such scattered in convenient localities will give good opportunity to rotate crops and poultry, and so gain a two-fold profit from the land and at the same time avoid all danger of the soil becoming poisoned by accumulation of the droppings. At Fairview Farm Mr. Blanchard combines fruit growing with poultry keeping, a combination which it would be difficult to better for double profits, and a combination which should be better understood by poultry growers. The advantages of combining fruit and poultry growing are many, not the least of the advantages being furnishing the shade which Prof. Rice tells us is so essential in summer. For the permanent yards there is nothing to equal apple trees, but as they are of somewhat slow growth and need large space when full grown, it is well to set apple trees about forty feet apart and set plums or peaches (or both) in the spaces between; the plum and peach trees will mature, produce a few crops of fruit and break down, before the apple trees will have grown to a stature to require all the room. A few years ago plum trees were strongly recommended for poultry yards, but experience has demonstrated that they cannot be depended upon for but a half dozen years or so, hence the wisdom of setting apple trees for permanent shade.
