Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 84, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1918 — MODERN METHODS OF HEN HOUSING [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MODERN METHODS OF HEN HOUSING

Tight, Warm Structures Should Give to Well Ventilated Quarters. FRESH AIR VERY ESSENTIAL Detailed Plan Given for Construction of Ideal Home for Twenty to Twenty-Five Fowls—Curtained Windows Favored. Modern methods of poultry housing make due allowance for the capacity of domestic birds to withstand low temperature and for the advantage of ample ventilation in the poultry house. Except in extreme northern sections, or for breeds of fowls having very large combs, it is no longer considered necessary to build houses so substantially that when they are closed the cold is excluded and the temperature in the house appreciably raised by the heat from th§ bodies of the birds. Tight, Warm Houses. The system of tight, warm houses, once very popular, was based upon the Idea that to have hens lay in cold weather they must be kept in houses where water would never freeze. The methods of housing now most widely approved and used are based upon the experience of many poultry keepers that egg production is more stable and the hens keep in much better condition when the house is built and used with a view ( to giving all the fresh air that cpn be given, without exposing the birds to a temperature that will frost their combs. It Jjas been found that the combs of Hefts accustomed to low temperatures became frost resistant to a remarkable degree, and the birds themselves much less subject to colds than when an effort is made to keep the houses as warm as is practicable. Light Durable House. Except when the winters are long and severe, hens may be kept comfortable and productive in a house of the lightest durable construction, provided the house has water-tight and wind-tight roof, rear wall and end walls, and a front which can be opened as much as is necessary to give thorough ventilation, or closed as much as is necessary to keep out rain or snow. For ventilation in summer it is advisable and often necessary to have apertures In the rear wall, or in the ends, toward the rear, which can be dosed perfectly tight in winter and

opened as much as required at other seasons.

Cheapest Eggs From Pullets. Feed to produce one dozen eggs cost 10 cents with pullets, 14 cents with two-year-old hens, and 19 cents with three-year-old hens In a threeyear feeding test conducted by poultrymen of the United States department of agriculture.

Hans of Inexpensive Poultry House Described In Accompanying Box.