The tendency in poultry house construction in recent years has
been to more and more open up the house to fresh air and sunshine,
and this opening up of the houses, and getting more and more fresh
air and sunshine into them, has been a decided step in advance in
poultry work. There are many modifications and adaptations of the
scratching-shed plan of house, perhaps the best known of them being
the “scratching-pen” plan, and the enclosed-roosting-closet plan,
the latter being the one evolved at the Maine Experiment Station
and illustrated on page 16. In this enclosed-roosting-closet house
we see the entire floor of the pen a curtained-front scratching
pen and the roosting apartment lifted up and enclosed by another
curtain-front; in the one we have the shed one department and the
roosting-laying department another (one a “living-room” and the other
the “bed-room”), with wide range of adaptability in the way of opening
up the roosting-laying room; in the other the enclosed roosting-closet,
or “bed-room,” and scratching-shed, or “living-room,” are in the
one apartment. Certain it is the curtained-front scratching-shed
type of house that has been growing very rapidly in favor with
practical poultrymen, and probably combines more advantages with fewer
disadvantages than any other one style of poultry house.
Each combined pen and shed covers eighteen by ten feet, the
curtained-front shed being ten by ten feet, and the roosting-room
adjoining being eight by ten feet, room sufficient for twenty-five
to thirty fowls of the American or thirty-five to forty of the
Mediterranean varieties. No “walk” is required because the walk is
through gates and doors, from shed to pen and pen to shed, and so
on to the end of the house and out the other end. The much-desired
ventilation of the poultry house is very varied in this plan, at the
discretion and according to the judgment of the operator, and can be
adapted to the different seasons in half a dozen different ways. In
summer the doors and windows are all wide open and the curtains are
hooked up against the roof out of the way. (It is to be remembered
that the doors between two pens are never to be left open when there
are birds in the pens, they are always kept closed except when opened
for the attendant to pass through from one pen to another). When the
nights begin to be decidedly frosty in the fall close the windows
in the fronts of the roosting pens, but leave shed-curtains hooked up
and doors between pens and sheds open. When it begins to freeze nights
close the curtains (at night) in fronts of sheds, but still leave
doors between pens and sheds open. These doors (including the slide
door) are never closed excepting on nights of solid cold, say when
the thermometer runs five to twenty degrees below zero; and for real
zero weather, from five above to away below zero, close the curtains
in front of roosts and all doors and windows are closed. An additional
protection against cold in extremely cold latitudes would be to
double-wall the back of the roost-pen, from the sill up to plate and
then up the roof-rafters four feet, packing the spaces between the
studs and rafters with planer shavings, straw, swale hay, or seaweed
(the latter is vermin-proof), then have a hinged curtain to drop down
to within about six inches of front of roost platform, and extending
a foot below it; this curtain we would close only on the very coldest
nights.
We would build this house seven feet high in front and five feet high
at the back. Sills and plates are all of two by four scantling, halved
and nailed together at joints. The rafters, corner studs, and studs in
centers of fronts of sheds are all two by four; the intermediate studs
are two by three. Set the sills on stone foundation a foot and a half
above the ground level, or on posts set into the ground below the usual
frost line, the posts being set five feet apart excepting in front of
roosting pens (where they come four feet apart)—there being a post at
corner of each pen and shed, with one between. The rafters should be
two feet between centers; as lumber comes twelve, fourteen, or sixteen
feet in length, and two-feet-apart rafters allow the lumber to be used
with almost no waste. The sills we would set a foot and a half above
average ground level. When set on posts put hemlock (or some hard wood)
boards from bottom half of sill down to ground, nailing them firmly
to sill and foundation posts; then fill up inside to bottom of sills
and slope the ground outside to same height, as illustrated in Fig.
1. Toe-nail studs to sills firmly, plates to studs ditto, and rafters
to plates. Set the studs in front of roosting pens to take the window
frames (or the window sash, if no frames are used), and in partitions
a stud should be set to take the two and one half feet wide doors and
gates. All of the framing is simple and easy, and any man who can
saw off a board or joist reasonably square and drive nails straight
can build this house; the slight bevel at each end of rafters being
perfectly simple. All boarding is lengthwise, the boards firmly nailed
and good joints made all over. Cover the roof and sides with Paroid,
and the house will be wind and waterproof.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: FIG. 32—The Continuous, Curtained-Front Scratching-shed
Poultry.]