About 75 square feet of tarred paper will be required.
About 120 sq. ft. of boarding will be required for the inside.
Where circumstances compel one to use a damp location, the building must be constructed so as to meet these conditions. Foundations of concrete, brick, or stone do not meet the conditions for a dry floor where one must use a badly-drained site. In such a case, the building must be set on posts. Short posts, only a foot high, hardly answer, for debris may collect thereunder, and harbor wild animals. Three feet of space, at least, should be given underneath. Cedar posts six feet apart, sunk into the ground to a depth of three and one-half or four feet, a foot of concrete being first poured into the hole, will insure a firm support.
The back and sides of this open space may be inclosed with boards, the open front being protected with heavy, close-meshed galvanized poultry wire, to prevent wild animals or poultry from taking refuge underneath. In a very wet place, however, I would not inclose with boards at all.
The floor of such a building should be: First, wide, rough boards, then rubber roofing laid over them, and secured at all joints to make it moisture-proof, and then narrow boards, tightly fitted together. This upper flooring should be well seasoned and well nailed down.
A house of this character, that will hold from twenty-five to thirty-five fowls, with nesting, scratching, roosting, and sand-bath accommodations, is eight and one-half feet deep, twelve feet long, six feet high in back, and nine feet in front. It has the single-pitched roof, shingled. Its walls are double-boarded, with an interlining of sheathing paper. In the front are two windows, six feet high by three and one-half feet wide. They are fitted with double sash, which can be removed in summer. At night these sash are let down from the top, and a burlap-covered frame placed over the entire window, admitting fresh air and preventing radiation of warmer air within through the exposed glass.
For a house in a damp location the large windows provide an excellent means of insuring dryness in winter if used to transmit sunlight during the day, and covered at night as explained above.
One of the Oregon Station types in which the whole end is of netting, covered with fabric in cold weather
