[Illustration: FIG. 21—Mr. A. G. Duston’s five-pen breeding house.]
One of America’s most successful poultrymen is Mr. Arthur G. Duston,
South Framingham, Mass., and as he has recently established himself on
a new farm, to secure necessary room, the type of poultry houses he
decides are the best for him is of interest. He is building seventeen
houses of five pens each, and uses some thirty odd of his well-known
colony-houses (Fig. 23). The five-pen houses are raised from the ground
from two to three feet, the space beneath being utilized as scratching
room. Each house is fifty by twelve feet, the pens being ten by twelve
feet each, and there is a window and door in the front of each pen;
doors in the front of partitions allow passing through from pen to pen.
The roosts are at the back, with nest boxes beneath the roost platforms.
This house has a short hip-roof sloping south, which is open to the
objection of carrying part of the roof-drip to the front of the
house,—a fault which can be mitigated by a gutter along the front, but
that increases the cost without always giving complete relief from the
drip; we decidedly prefer the single-slope roof.
[Illustration: FIG. 22—Ground plan and cross-section.]
[Illustration: FIG. 23—Mr. Duston’s “colony” house.]
Mr. Duston’s “colony,” or portable, houses are justly favorites, the
distinctive feature of them being the double door, or wire netting door
covered with a second door. These “colony” houses are ten by five feet
on the ground, five feet high in front, and four feet high at the back,
and have board floors.