Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884: A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and FiresideVarious
Science
Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884: A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside
Various
Agriculture -- United States -- Periodicals; Farm life -- Periodicals; United States -- Rural conditions -- Periodicals
I often read inquiries about the best plan for building hen houses. My
plan is, for 100 fowls, to build a house for them to roost in, eight or
even ten feet wide and sixteen feet long, one story high with tight
floor of yellow pine flooring. I prefer a tight floor because it is
easily cleaned out, and every time it is cleaned out and swept the floor
should be well covered with slaked lime; one cleaning a week is often
enough.
A building of the same size should be built with a dirt floor, or close
one, as preferred, about ten or fifteen feet from the roosting house for
the hens to lay and sit in. A petition may be made of laths dividing the
house into two compartments, the front arranged for the laying hens and
the back compartments for sitting hens; then the laying hens will not
disturb the sitting hens. A closed passway should be made, say one and
one half or two feet square leading from the roosting house to the
laying house with a sliding door at each end to be used at pleasure. As
it often happens in cold, snowy weather in winter it is not desirable to
let the fowls out, then the slides at each end of the passway can be
opened and feed and water placed in the laying house (because the floor
in that house will always be cleanest), and all the fowls will soon
learn to go in there to eat and drink, and lay if they want to. It is, I
think, bad policy to force fowls to roost, lay, and sit all in the same
room.
The boxes that contain the nests should be made so that they can be at
any time taken out and the nests turned out in a pile, set on fire and
the boxes held over the fire to kill any lice that may be sticking to
them.
B. F. C.
HIKE'S POINT, KY.
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