Part 3

For intermediate supports, or studs, corner braces, and rafters (2 × 4) 120 lineal feet

For the roof beneath the tarred paper, 128 lineal feet of six-inch boards will be required, or 160 feet of five-inch boards; 400 lineal feet of five-inch weather boards will be required to inclose the building.

For the window and door casings 50 lineal feet of suitable lumber will be required, and 30 lineal feet of five-inch tongue-and-groove boards for the door.

The hinged door in the rear is made of the weather boards and covered with tarred paper on the inside.

About 75 square feet of tarred paper will be required.

About 120 sq. ft. of boarding will be required for the inside.

Where circumstances compel one to use a damp location, the building must be constructed so as to meet these conditions. Foundations of concrete, brick, or stone do not meet the conditions for a dry floor where one must use a badly-drained site. In such a case, the building must be set on posts. Short posts, only a foot high, hardly answer, for debris may collect thereunder, and harbor wild animals. Three feet of space, at least, should be given underneath. Cedar posts six feet apart, sunk into the ground to a depth of three and one-half or four feet, a foot of concrete being first poured into the hole, will insure a firm support.

The back and sides of this open space may be inclosed with boards, the open front being protected with heavy, close-meshed galvanized poultry wire, to prevent wild animals or poultry from taking refuge underneath. In a very wet place, however, I would not inclose with boards at all.

The floor of such a building should be: First, wide, rough boards, then rubber roofing laid over them, and secured at all joints to make it moisture-proof, and then narrow boards, tightly fitted together. This upper flooring should be well seasoned and well nailed down.

A house of this character, that will hold from twenty-five to thirty-five fowls, with nesting, scratching, roosting, and sand-bath accommodations, is eight and one-half feet deep, twelve feet long, six feet high in back, and nine feet in front. It has the single-pitched roof, shingled. Its walls are double-boarded, with an interlining of sheathing paper. In the front are two windows, six feet high by three and one-half feet wide. They are fitted with double sash, which can be removed in summer. At night these sash are let down from the top, and a burlap-covered frame placed over the entire window, admitting fresh air and preventing radiation of warmer air within through the exposed glass.

For a house in a damp location the large windows provide an excellent means of insuring dryness in winter if used to transmit sunlight during the day, and covered at night as explained above.

A building that is practically fireproof may be made of cement blocks for foundation and walls, with a concrete floor six inches higher than the outside ground. Wood may be used for the rafters and ceiling, the roof being covered with metal, tile, or asbestos roofing, and the inside ceiling plastered.

Another building which will provide seventy-five or one hundred fowls with roosting, scratching, and nesting-room in the winter, when foul weather makes confinement necessary, is twenty feet long, twelve feet deep, six feet high in the rear, and ten feet high in front. It has a brick foundation and a concrete floor that is ten inches above the level of the ground at the front of the building, in order to bring it well above the surface of the ground in the rear--the site is a sloping one.

In the front are three windows, one foot from the sides of the building, one foot below the top, and one foot apart. They are five feet four inches wide, three and one-half feet high, and fitted with burlap-covered frames, which may be lifted and fastened against the ceiling when so desired. Weather boards, sheathing paper, and narrow boards on the inside form the walls.

Directly in front, and extending the length of the building, is a glass-inclosed sun room four feet high and five feet wide. One end of this has a door to allow for the cleaning of the floor. The concrete floor of the main room extends into the sun room. Three openings, ten inches wide and one foot high, connect this sun room with the main room, and are provided with slides to be closed at night when the sun room is no longer a warm place.

The roosts are in the rear and extend the entire length of the building. There are three, placed four feet above the ground floor. These roosts are removable, being set in grooves cut into the wooden brackets which hold them. A hinged drop-board in sections is hung below the roosts.

The nests are forty in number in two tiers, and are fixed to the front wall of the building, below the windows. They are covered at the top, open at the side, and have a running-board before them one foot wide. Nests and boards are supported by stout wooden brackets about three feet apart. Nests and perches are reached by climbing-boards at one end of the room. The door is placed at the opposite end of the building, and is twenty-six inches wide and six feet high. It can be made wider if desired, as there is room.

The care of the young birds is greatly lightened by houses built for them especially. These need not be large nor elaborate, and, since they are for use in the milder seasons of the year, do not require great precautions against the cold.

While the slant-roofed colony coops, which can be moved about, are best for the care of large flocks of growing poultry, the progeny of the small family flock may be conveniently housed in one long coop divided into compartments, with separate little pens before each division. A coop of this kind, six feet long, thirty inches wide, and twenty-seven inches high, will shelter seventy-five young chicks very comfortably from babyhood to large broiler age. The floor should be made tight and warm, and the coop mounted upon skids or runners, so that it may be moved if desired. The top of this coop slants gently and lifts up like a lid for inspection and cleaning, and this top is hinged to the rear side, and covered with tarred paper.

Since young chicks will crowd and smother if the air supply is limited, the entire front of the coop, to seven inches above the bottom, is covered with coarse muslin or sacking during spring, and with galvanized wire netting in the summer.

The size of the lumber necessary for any of these buildings is about the same: Timber for sills, 5 × 6 in.; cross-beams and main supports, 4 × 3 in.; intermediate joists, supports, and rafters, 2 × 4 in.; and for weather boards and floor boards, any convenient width.

Well-seasoned lumber should be used, and should be first-class of its kind. Second-grade material may be used for the wood-house, but faulty building of the poultry house may mean more in losses from drafty floors or walls than the saving in the first outlay will warrant.

FLOORS AND FOUNDATIONS

The floor of the poultry house sustains as important a relation to the health of the fowls as any other part of the building. A cold, drafty floor is a constant menace, inducing catarrhal affections, and a damp floor, with its constant evaporation of unwholesome moisture, is equally unfavorable.

The floor of the building bears a close relation to the foundation; indeed, its character is actually determined by the kind of foundation used. From this relation have developed three distinct styles of flooring: the earth or cement floor with brick or stone foundations; the board floor with a foundation; and the board floor without a foundation, the structure being supported on posts.

Any one of these can be made a success if its peculiar requirements are complied with.

The board floor with a foundation makes a warm floor, but it is not durable over a perfectly tight foundation, which tends to induce rotting from the dampness of the soil beneath. To insure against this, openings should be left in either end of the foundation--openings about the size of a brick's end. In a long building, such openings should occur at intervals of ten feet.

Such places are an invitation to rats, however, and should be securely protected by heavy, close-meshed galvanized wire, or by iron grating.