Fig. 13—A California “Mushroom” poultry house.
Fig. 14—A Florida poultry house.
Some of the houses are built of iron advertising signs, and have the common double-pitch roof; in some cases the sides are made of burlap tacked on to furring, which is nailed to the posts. This burlap is then painted with crude oil, distillate, and Venetian red, to make it wind-proof. Lumber is very expensive in that section, and the burlap, when water-proofed, makes a cheap and quite desirable house.
A much better wind and water-tight construction would be Paroid for the roof, and Paroid or Neponset Red Rope Roofing for the sides.
THE ADVANTAGE OF DOUBLE YARDS
When fowls are kept in the confinement of houses and yards an important question is how to keep the yards sweet. The ground becomes tainted in a couple of years or so, and then is a fruitful source of disease. Unless grass can be kept growing so as to keep the ground free from the poison of the droppings there is no alternative but to change the ground. It is well to have two runs, using each alternately, and by planting the one vacated with some quick-growing crop it can be made ready for occupancy again in a few weeks. An excellent crop for this purpose is Dwarf Essex Rape, which makes one of the best summer-green foods for fowls confined to houses and yards; or such garden crops as squashes, melons, etc., can be grown. After these rye or oats can be sown, to furnish green food in the fall.
It is a comparatively simple proposition to have the yards divided into two sections, by setting the house in the middle, having half (or two-fifths or three-fifths) of the length of yards north of the house; these north yards being used three or four months in summer, a crop of some suitable kind being grown in the vacant yards south of the house in the meantime.
