Andrew Frederick Hunter

“ The arguments in favor of this type of house for swine are that each sow at farrowing time may be kept alone and away from all disturbance; that each litter of pigs may be kept and fed by itself, consequently there will not be too large a number of pigs in a common lot; that these houses may be placed at the farther end of the feed lot, thus compelling the sow and pigs to take exercise, especially in winter, when they come to the feed trough at the front end of the lot; that the danger of spreading disease among a herd is at a minimum ”

“ In very cold weather, when the house is tightly closed save for a muslin curtain in one or two windows of each pen, the vapor thrown off in the breath of the fowls will pass up through the cracks in the loft-floor and be absorbed in the straw above, instead of being condensed on the walls and roof in the form of frost. On mild days in winter the doors in the gable may be opened wide, or if it is very windy the door in the leeward end may be opened, which permits the air to draw through over the straw, drying it thoroughly, without any draughts upon the birds on the floor below. ”

“ In selecting the site of a sheep shed these facts should determine the choice of a site that is drained and dry throughout the year. Dryness is one of the essentials of a good foundation for a healthy shed; second only to this in importance is the ventilation. Warm, close sheds mean the downfall of the sheep that are folded in them. A sheep is warm in body, as its blood temperature is high, and then the nature of the fleece is such as to be very retentive of the body’s heat. The cause of most failures to keep sheep profitably has been from housing them in warm, close buildings. ”

“ Double yards are desirable where space can be given for them; they allow a rotation of green crops, which cleanses and sweetens the ground, and converts the excrement which would become a source of danger into a valuable food crop. The shape of the fields, the slope of the land, and the location of other farm buildings will have much to do with the shape of the yards [Pg 5] and mode of access to the poultry buildings. Generally the yards should be long and narrow, so as to make cultivation easy. ”

“ You can pay most any price for a ready roofing, and, like everything else, you get as much quality as you pay for. Paroid may cost more than other ready roofings the day you buy it, but it is less expensive after it is applied to your roof, because it will last longer. We maintain that the test of time is the test that tells, and Paroid has stood that test. ”

“ A good cement floor is nearly as cheap as a good matched-board floor, counting lumber, sleepers, nails, time, etc. When once properly made it is good for all time. It is practically rat-proof, easily cleaned and perfectly dry, cutting off absolutely all the water from below. If covered with a little soil, or straw, or both, as all floors should be, it will be a warm floor.
A low house is easier warmed than a high one. Solid walls radiate heat rapidly. The best way to make a poultry house warm is to build it as low as possible without danger of bumping heads. ”

“ On the Gowell Poultry Farm, Orono, Maine, there is an excellent example of the continuous-house, and by the partial adoption of the dry-feeding method the labor is so far reduced that one man can do all the work of feeding and caring for two thousand head of layers, kept in a house four hundred feet long by twenty feet wide, which is divided into pens twenty feet square and one hundred birds kept in each. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is a very great diversity in plans of barns and stables, the taste of individual owners seeming to favor this or that plan, which they think is best adapted to their needs. Observation of various types of farm buildings, however, will convince the thoughtful man that too often a single point of convenience is magnified till other points are wholly obscured, and to secure the one advantage several decided conveniences are sacrificed ”

“ Sunlight not only warms and dries the building, but destroys disease germs, thus making the building both warm and sanitary.
The upper window, which throws light into the pen on the north side is long, and this necessitates a flat roof for the part of the building south of the alley, which must necessarily be covered with some material, such as Paroid Roofing, that will shed water at a slight pitch. Dryness should be secured by thorough drainage, freedom from dust by sprinkling with water, and the direct sunlight should be prevented from entering the pens during the hot part of the summer days ”

“ This style of poultry house has been in use on the White Leghorn farm for several years, and it has been found to be both practical and economical; it combines very completely the laying and the breeding house. On this plant they practise the alternate system of males in the pens, a small coop for the extra male being set against the partition in one corner of the pen, four feet up from the floor. One male bird is cooped up while the other runs with the hens and they are exchanged every two or three days, the change being effected at night, on occasion of the shutting-up visit. ”

“ Large Houses.—Individual hog houses have certain advantages in their favor, and large houses, if properly planned and built, have many points of advantage; among them being good sanitation, serviceability, safety in farrowing, ease in handling hogs, and large pastures involving little expense for fences. In order to be sanitary a hog house should admit the direct rays of the sun to the floor of all the pens and exclude cold drafts in winter, be dry, free from dust, well ventilated, and exclude the hot sun during the summer. ”

“ In warm weather the gable doors may be left open night and day, and the draught through the loft, together with the ventilation through open doors and windows in the house below, keeps the birds cool and comfortable. These houses are thoroughly practical in every way and will be found very desirable for use on any large farm. A few such scattered in convenient localities will give good opportunity to rotate crops and poultry, and so gain a two-fold profit from the land and at the same time avoid all danger of the soil becoming poisoned by accumulation of the droppings. ”

“ The farm-barn is a most important aid to economy of labor, if rightly planned, and we give on this page the plans of a small barn, for a farm where eight or ten cows are kept, such as is quite common in New England and the Middle States, and which gives excellent satisfaction everywhere. On the farm where this plan was studied the pair of horses were housed in a small horse barn nearer the dwelling house, the Democrat wagon, canopy top carriage and sleigh, etc., being under the same roof. ”

“ There will then be ample air-space for as many fowls as the floor space will accommodate. Too much air-space makes a house cold; it cannot be warmed by the heat given off by the fowls.
Sunlight is a necessity to fowls; it carries warmth and good cheer, and tends to arrest or prevent disease. Too much glass makes a house too cold at night and too warm in the daytime, because glass gives off heat at night as readily as it collects it in the daytime. ”

“ A hot-water heater may be installed on the main floor, but better be in the basement, where the coal bin would be; radiators may be set as desired, with one at least in rear of the box stall and one on the carriage floor, and a small one in the man’s room on second floor. The roof is drained by galvanized iron pipes emptying into blind wells. The carriage room floor is concreted, and a drain pipe leads from the depression where carriages are washed to a blind well. At one end is a platform for drying the bedding, and ventilation is so well provided for there are almost no odors. ”

“ A house of this kind can be simply, economically, and conveniently built, and well supplies the conditions for successful poultry keeping; we recently visited a dairy and poultry farm in Connecticut where house room for one hundred and fifty head of laying-breeding stock had been built in the lee of and annexed to the dairy barns and sheds. A good prepared roofing, such as “Paroid,” makes quite shallow and low lean-to roofs easy of construction, both air and water-tight, and very durable. ”

“ PAROID FOR FARM AND POULTRY BUILDINGS
Paroid is adapted to all kinds of buildings and especially farm and poultry buildings. It makes a building warmer in winter and cooler in summer than other kinds of roofing. It will not taint rain water and is not affected by gases and fumes.
PAROID FOR SIDING
The next time you put up a poultry house, shed, or other farm building, lay Paroid on the roof yourself, and then apply it to the sides with battens. You will be surprised at the neat effect it gives, and it is more economical than clapboards and shingles. ”

“ They are especially valuable on a farm, where it is desired to locate a flock of half-grown chicks out in the stubble of a newly-cut grain field, or colonies of chicks along the border of a cornfield, or on a poultry farm where extra room is needed for surplus stock and cockerels which are to be sold for breeding purposes. A solid board floor enables shutting the birds in at night and keeping them in until the team has drawn them to the new location in the morning ”

“ Modern dairy farming means an up-to-date dairy barn, and we give herewith the plans of one which is warmly endorsed by the owner and carries fifty cows in perfect comfort. This is a truss-frame barn, ninety-three feet long by forty feet wide, the basement (or ground) floor being wholly occupied by cow stalls and calving pens, the main floor being a hay-storage room. Two bays on one side are used for grain storage, all the remainder of the bays on both sides being for hay ”

“ The warmer the air the more moisture it will hold; when this moist air comes in contact with a cold surface condensation takes place, which is often converted into hoar-frost. The remedy is to remove the moisture as far as possible, by first cutting off the water from below which comes up from the soil. The water table is the same under a hen-house as it is outdoors; dirt floors, therefore, are liable to be damp. Stone filling covered with soil is sometimes difficult to keep clean and may only partially keep out dampness. ”

“ In order to be most serviceable a hog house should be constructed so that it can be used every day in the year. In order to be an economizer of labor the house should be planned so that the largest amount of work may be performed with the smallest amount of labor, which, with the present scarcity of labor, is a very important factor. Farrowing pens should be supplied with fenders, which prevent the sows crushing the pigs, and should be built so the attendant may lend assistance, if necessary, with both convenience and safety. ”

“ To further the entrance of sunlight the windows should be higher than they are wide, which will materially assist in diffusing the rays over the greatest amount of inside space. In addition to these a shed should be large enough to supply storage space for sufficient fodder to feed the sheep while they must be sheltered. Estimating that a ton of hay requires five hundred cubic feet, and that a sheep will not eat over three pounds of hay per day, it would require about one hundred and twenty-five cubic feet of space to contain the hay needed to maintain a sheep during six months. ”

“ Foundation walls should be built deep enough to prevent heaving by the frost and high enough to prevent surface water from entering. Where large stones are scarce sometimes grout walls may be made with gravel or small stones and cement; or the building may be set upon posts set well into the ground, in which case hemlock or hard wood boards should be securely nailed to bottom half of sills and extend down to natural ground level, to exclude rats.
Dampness is fatal to hens; build or drain so as to secure dryness. It is better by far to have a cold, dry house than a warm, damp house. ”

“ A good waterproof paper repels dampness, keeps out the cold and lasts the life of a building. For over twenty-five years Neponset Papers have been the standard. Actual experiences have proved that Neponset saves one-third of the fuel required to heat a house, therefore, a big saving each year. Neponset acts as a blanket on a house it keeps out the cold and keeps in the heat. Don’t lay the foundations for an annual loss, save one-third of the money you would spend on fuel. That’s what Neponset has done for others, it will do it for you. ”

“ At Fairview Farm Mr. Blanchard combines fruit growing with poultry keeping, a combination which it would be difficult to better for double profits, and a combination which should be better understood by poultry growers. The advantages of combining fruit and poultry growing are many, not the least of the advantages being furnishing the shade which Prof. Rice tells us is so essential in summer. ”

“ A good size of house of this kind is ten feet long by seven feet wide, six feet high in front and four feet six inches high at the back; or for a flock of eight or ten fowls eight feet long by five or six feet wide will answer well. Houses of this type are built of a size to suit the builder, and they can be easily moved to a new location at any time.
Excellent patterns of small poultry houses, well adapted to the suburban lot or for moving out into the orchard on a farm, are shown on pages 8 and 9; these “colony” houses have proved their merits in many different localities. ”