On the small plant, with an average farm flock, raising from two hundred to perhaps a thousand chicks, the portable colony house, especially the gasoline brooder, is one of the best types to select.

Long brooder houses may be grouped under four heads, according to the methods of brooding. One system has continuous or overhead pipes with hover boards above the pipes. Here the pipes usually extend along the top of each brooder compartment, these being from four to five feet in width. The hover consists of light boards hinged at the back, which can be lifted up to facilitate cleaning, the hover usually covering the entire end of the brooder pen. This was the first system extensively employed, but it is becoming obsolete because of better types. The brooder compartments are large and permit the handling of many chicks. There is not uniformity of temperature nor adequate control of it. It is especially adapted for use in the first week, but, owing to the great expense involved by having two houses, this type has given way to a system adapted to the entire brooding period, In this class of brooder house, the pipes are from six to eight inches above the brooder floor, the back of the hover compartments usually being ventilated by apertures covered with muslin. In front of the hover board is suspended a slotted burlap or felt curtain.

The second brooding method, which is very popular and being more and more generally adopted, has at the back of each individual pen a specially constructed compartment with a circular portable hover (Fig. 164). Here the heat is conveyed from a chamber below the brooder floor, through a galvanized metal pipe from four to six inches in diameter, and distributed into the hover just below the hover top. In this type of brooder it is essential that the hot-air chamber below be entirely isolated, so that no heat can escape and provide bottom heat, the objection being that it causes weakness of legs and loss of vitality. The hot-air chamber is heated by means of hot-water pipes passing through it from a central heating plant. The exact arrangement of the hover compartment itself admits of many variations. Some of original models provide excellent advantages; among the best being a damper in the metal pipe which makes possible the control of each compartment.

The third method of equipping the long brooder house is to install individual brooders, either single or double units.

FIG. 164.-A, Interior of long house with double-pen brooders. B, Single compartment and its hover. (Courtesy of Hall and Candee Companies.)

These units are heated by kerosene lamps (Fig. 165). The usual method is to maintain a uniform temperature in the

FIG. 165.-Portable indoor hovers make it possible to use the laying houses for brooding purposes. (Photo by Rancocas Poultry Farm.)

brooder house by the use of a few coils of hot-water pipe and then to increase the hover temperature to any desired degree by the

use of a lamp. If properly carried out, this method will give almost ideal brooding conditions, yet the labor involved is so great, as compared with the central heating system, that, where a large number of chicks are to be cared for, the latter is by far the best.

The fourth method, practised to only a limited extent, is to equip the long brooder house with fireless brooders or hovers, so constructed that they conserve the heat given off by the bird itself. The troubles are that they are hard to ventilate properly, that their use induces a loss of vitality, and that very few birds can be grouped in a single flock, not over twenty-five with safety. Fireless brooders have not been, and probably never will be, used very extensively.

Colony brooder houses are of three types, varying in size and other respects. Those of extremely small size, often only three by five feet, are equipped

with a portable hover, the heat being generated by a kerosene lamp. These are commonly called portable outdoor brooders (Fig. 166), and have a capacity of approximately fifty chicks each. They necessitate considerable labor and attendance, are hard to clean, and the lamp is inaccessible. In the early equipped with hovers heated by kerosene lamps. spring, too, it is difficult

FIG. 167.-Colony houses built on runners and

to maintain the required degree of heat, as they are always extremely susceptible to outside changes in temperature. These brooders are well adapted to the needs of the small poultryman, who broods only two or three hundred chicks.

The second type of colony brooder house is much larger, usually six by eight or eight by eight feet at the base, and there are various styles of construction. The shed-roof house is common (Fig. 167). Such houses are equipped with one or two, usually two, portable or adaptable hovers, which are heated with kerosene lamps. The lamp may be placed outside or inside of the building as seems most desirable. Being of large size, these houses will accommodate a considerable number of chicks. After the chicks have grown sufficiently, the hovers can be re

moved, and the house used as a growing or summer colony house, thus one house serves two purposes. These houses are easily built, with a four-foot wall at the back and a six-foot wall in front, with a shed roof, the front having a muslin curtain extending from the top halfway to the ground, on either side of a central door. The third type of colony brooder house is represented by the "gasoline brooder house "* (Fig. 168), consisting of a portable A-shaped house with a very low side wall and eight by eight feet of floor space. The fuel used is gasoline. The house contains a large storage tank and a blue-flame gasoline burner which permits of continuous operation for from four days to a week without refilling the tank, this depending on the season. The hover is exceedingly large, and covered with a large hover board. This equipment will easily accommodate two hundred chicks. It is an exceptionally warm house, and can be used in extremely cold weather. It provides for an abundance of ventilation, and can be used in warm weather as well as cold. The cost is relatively low, the entire equipment, including all lumber, hardware, and metal, costing only about thirty-eight dollars.

This type of brooder can be put to the following uses: (1) That of a brooder house for brooding young chicks when they are taken from the incubator. (2) The source of heat can be removed, and, the house being portable, it can be pulled out into a cornfield or orchard, and be used for a summer colony or developing house. (3) When desired, it can be used for a small flock of laying hens during the winter, accommodating from ten to fifteen birds. Thus it becomes possible to utilize the equipment throughout the entire year, and does away with the necessity of spending considerable money on a permanent long brooder house which would only be used for limited periods. Plans for the construction of this house are shown in figure 168 at A. Lumber for Gasoline Brooder House.

1

Foundation, 2 ps. 2" x 12" x 8'.
Floor joists, 4 ps. 2" x 4" x 8'.

Floor (double), 65 sq. ft. ship lap, 1" x 10".
70 sq. ft. 3" flooring.

Sides and roof, 250 sq. ft. ship lap, 1" x 10".
Studding and rafters, 1" x 3" dressed white pine.
Roofing paper, 300 sq. ft., 120 linear ft.

Door and hover, 40 sq. ft. 1" x 10" white pine.
3 cellar sash, hinges, and nails.

* Designed by Poultry Department of Cornell University.