Fig. 6—An experiment with curtains in the windows.
Secure shelter and warmth by building in the lee of a windbreak or a hill, or of other farm buildings. Buildings that face the south, or about two points east of south, will get the largest amount of exposure to the sun’s rays and protection from the cold northwest and west winds of winter; other things being equal they will be warmer, dryer, and more cheerful. An eastern exposure is usually preferable to a western exposure, barring prevailing winds being from the east; because, like flowers, hens prefer morning to afternoon sun.
The shape of the roof of a poultry house greatly influences the cost, and, generally speaking, the preference should be for houses with single-span (or “shed”) roofs. See Figs. 2 and 3. These houses are the easiest and cheapest to build, they give the much-desired vertical front, with room for the windows to be placed high to distribute the winter sunshine (Fig. 4), and with the drip of the roof all carried off to the north the ground in front of the house is dry. It also is cooler in summer, as it is not exposed to the direct rays of the sun, and is warmer in winter because it gets the direct rays of the sun.
Fig. 7—An implement house adapted for poultry.
Not infrequently there are small buildings on the place which can be easily and economically adapted to poultry use; as, for example, an old implement house, or grain house, or tool shed, which can be altered into a one or two pen-house, as desired, by arranging windows and doors and adding one or two open-front scratching-sheds for exercise and fresh air (Figs. 7 and 10). In case there is no building suitable for remodelling into a poultry house an inexpensive lean-to may be built onto the south end of the stable (Fig. 9). A house of this kind can be simply, economically, and conveniently built, and well supplies the conditions for successful poultry keeping; we recently visited a dairy and poultry farm in Connecticut where house room for one hundred and fifty head of laying-breeding stock had been built in the lee of and annexed to the dairy barns and sheds. A good prepared roofing, such as “Paroid,” makes quite shallow and low lean-to roofs easy of construction, both air and water-tight, and very durable.
Sometimes a dweller in the suburbs, or one living on a small, rented place, wants to keep a flock of fifteen or twenty head of fowls, to supply the family with fresh-laid eggs during the fall, winter, and spring, and then fresh poultry meat for the table; these are all disposed of before the family goes away to the country or seashore for the summer, and another flock of well-matured pullets is bought in the fall. For such purpose the small portable house shown in Fig. 12, or one of the several patterns of “colony-houses” given herein, will serve excellently; all of these colony-houses are portable. A good size of house of this kind is ten feet long by seven feet wide, six feet high in front and four feet six inches high at the back; or for a flock of eight or ten fowls eight feet long by five or six feet wide will answer well. Houses of this type are built of a size to suit the builder, and they can be easily moved to a new location at any time.
Excellent patterns of small poultry houses, well adapted to the suburban lot or for moving out into the orchard on a farm, are shown on pages 8 and 9; these “colony” houses have proved their merits in many different localities. They are especially valuable on a farm, where it is desired to locate a flock of half-grown chicks out in the stubble of a newly-cut grain field, or colonies of chicks along the border of a cornfield, or on a poultry farm where extra room is needed for surplus stock and cockerels which are to be sold for breeding purposes. A solid board floor enables shutting the birds in at night and keeping them in until the team has drawn them to the new location in the morning; it also secures the birds against marauding animals at night, if the slide door has been closed. For convenience of drawing to a new location it is best to have them mounted on low runners.
