Holmgreen, E. N.

Texas A&M University

-71
•.. . ·Issued .By]
.... ..he Extension SerV'lce, I
Agr'cultural C .Mechanical College of Texas I,
an t e. U' • 0 par ment· of AQri'culture-,
O. B. Marfn Director, COlleqe Station,Texas 1
. . '" j
Foreword
BAD LUCK is generally bad management. It's not the bigthings that make most folks fail with chickens-it's the
little things. Not enough mash troughs, poor water facil-
ities, lack of nests, dirty houses, no shade and such like are
the little things that make bad luck.
This bulletin shows some simple equipment found on
successful poultry farms here and there over the state, just
inexpensive "chicken furniture" that will make a big differ-
ence in the management-and the luck-of your flock.
The furniture isn't everything, of course, and you can
get other bulletins on housing, feeding, and culling, from
your county or home dem.onstration agent er from the
Extension Service, College Station, Texas.
2
Poultry Yard Equipment
By E. N. Holmgreen
Extension Poultry Husbandman
au CAN drive nails with a rock or the heel of your shoe,
but it's a hard way of doing an easy job. Keeping chick-
ens is year round work. A few tools of the trade will make
the work much easier.
The sled is fine for moving manure (out to the garden
where it belongs), hauling water, moving litter, mash troughs,
feed, coops of chickens and a hundred other things on the
farm. As the advertisements say, "Ask the man who owns
one." The scraper to the right of the sprayer in the above pic-
ture is just the thing for scrap,ing the dropping boards, clean-
ing roosts, troughs, and the like. Make it out of a worn-out
hoe by simply heating a.nd straightening out the neck. Don't
overlook the big fork (any cotton seed handler has them),
it's handy for moving dirty litter. A putty knife is a fine ad-
dition for scraping out corners and other small places.
3
C'atching Coop Is A Time Saver
CULLING, worming, vaccinating, or otherwise handling acouple hundred hens is a terrible job if you have to chase
them all around the house to catch them. It's such work
that it's p'ut off and put off and often left undone. Jobs like
this that you never get around to are fine starters of bad luck.
The simple little catching coop shown on the front cover
will completely change the complexion of the work. Any sort of
coop will do if it has a hole in one end to let the chicken in
and another somewhere else to take them out. A handy way
of fixing the door in the top where birds are removed is to
stretch two flat strips of an old inner tube over the opening.
Let one strip over-lap the other ab'out two inches. Birds are
easy to get out and the "door" always stays closed. S t the
catching coop against an
opening in the corner of
the house; then "seine"
them into the coop with
a lO-foot length of poul-
try wire.
Make Water Handy
W .HY BE, STI GYwith water when
it's the cheapest thing
chickens need? Eggs are
two-thirds water, and
hens can't make them
very fast if forced to run
to the barn lot or tank
every time they want a
drink. Water must be
convenient to the hen.
If water is piped to
the house, then some
such handy system as
shown at left will solve
the problem. Note the
For .running water. wire over the center of
4
the trough to keep chickens out. An automatic float instead of
the faucet will help. With this system don't forget to arrange
drainage for waste water. Pipe the waste outside the house.
Run it into a hole dug 3 feet each way and filled with rocks.
This lets the water soak down and does not leave wet, sloppy
places to start disease. To help further, cover the hole with
chicken netting.
A row of 14 or 16-quart heavy galvanized buckets in the
flock house is a good system. By using a bucket as the water
vessel, it will likely be washed when refilled. When water is
carried in a bucket to fill some other vessel, the other vessel
is seldom kept clean.
To avoid a sloppy, disease-breeding floor around the
bucket, set in a pan, protecting the hens from the dirty water
that will slop into the pan by a wire covering. To do this get
a tinsmith to make a square pan about 2 feet square. Build a
square wooden frame to set down over the pan and cover the
frame with V2-inch mesh hardware cloth. Cut a hole in the
center large enough for the bucket to set through. Some sort
of wire guard over the top will keep the hens off from the
bucket. ( ote inset in above picture) . ,..~-~
5(.)
Make Mash Troughs To Order
HE HE is a high speed piece of machinery. Don't slow
up egg laying by making her continually wait her turn
at the feed trough. With the right feed the more she eats,
the more eggs she will lay. Provide one foot of trough sp,ace
for each 10 hens. Don't count both sides-a 5-foot trough has
5 feet of trough, not 10, and will accommodate 50 hens.
Poultrymen say the reel type trough illustrated below is
a good one. The revolving reel-a piece of 1x2-keeps chickens
out of the trough and flips off any birds that try to stand
where droppings.·will dirty the feed. The reel has a nail in each
end as an axle which fits into a slot in the end pieces. The reel
lifts out making cleaning or refilling easy. The stand helps
in the laying house by raising the trough away from the litter
" "Jx2~
PERSPECTIVE
Reel type mash trough.
6
and dirt on the floor and also
away from the hens that are
not eating. For larger breeds
move the standing boards fur-
ther from the trough. For out-
side use remove the reel and
fasten a "V" type cover as a
top to keep out light rains.
Hens Must Have Shade
A CHICKEN'S normal temperature is 106 degrees. Theymu t have shade in summer. The best way, of course,
is to have some good shade trees on the flock range, but it
takes time to grow trees. Meanwhile the wrong way is to let
them find their own shade in little loafing groups under the
wagon and barn and along the fence row. Give them a good
big thatch shade with water and feed troughs under it to
keep them busy. Build the shade about 6 feet off the ground.
Low hade is hot and does little good.
A good shade-euily bunt.
7
Have ORe Nest to Five Hens
o ONE KNOWS why sixteen hens want to lay in the same
nest when other nests are empty. They must be humor-
ed in this, however, by building them a good system of nests,
one nest to each 5 '. hens. This will cut down the broken and
dirty eggs and reduce pickouts and prolapses.
The picture below shows demountable nests placed out of
the way on end walls or partitions. The diagram on the next
page sht>w's how the nests may be p,ut up in sections to be
easily demountab,le. This construction allows for variation in
the number of nests by adding or lessening the number of
tiers. Make nests 12 inches square and 14 inches high. A wire
bottom instead of boards improves them for warmer section.
In low production mo.nths, close up a tier or two.
Hen8~will want to lay here.
8
Trap ests
I F YOU WANT to trap llest,put on a good "front."
Illustrated below; is one style
of trap nest front that easily
goes on or off the regular
nests. Such trap nest fronts
are comparatively cheap" ser-
viceable and work fine.
The front makes the trap nest.
A convenient broody coop.
Don't Let A Hen Get Too Motherly
BROODY HENS don't lay eggs. Get them back to work bybreaking them up, quickly. If the broody coop is con en-
iently located, right in the flock house, it can be used promptly.
If it's a hundred yards away under "that nice tree" it's tempt-
ing to wait until a whole handful of hens are broody before
putting them up.' A wlre-'c~p su~pended'-with-wires -from the
roof about a foot off the ground is just the thing. Put the
"broodies" up immediately and feed them just like the layers
but add a slight laxative.
10
It's Cleanliness Th·at Counts In Brooder Houses
BROODER HOU,SES ought to be cleaned daily, but poultry-men rarely do it until disease hits and then it's too late.
Pecking around in the filth on the floor spreads disease. Don't
run the chance of being care1ess. Fix a hardware cloth (~ail
screen) brooder house floor. This raised wire platform lets
the droppings fall through where the chicks can't reach them.
Make the wire floor of 1/2-inch mesh hardware cloth nailed
on frames of 1x4's set edgeways with cross pieces set 30 inch-
es apart to prevent the wire from sagging. Make the frames
in 'sections for easy handling. Set the section together leav-
ing walkway around the edges. Put the hover, water and feed
vessels on top of the wire. If a coal brooder is used, set it on
a sand box of 1x4's the size of the base of the stove and make
the floor frames fit around the sand box. Cover floor lightly
with litter to prevent droppings from sticking. Clean once
every week or 10 days for good sanitation.
Wire floor saves labor and chicks.
11
Build a set of roosts for the brooder house.
Fix' Special Roosts For Chicks
T EACH THE C,HICKS to roost while in the brooder house.If you don't, chicks which want and ought to be on roosts
will be crowding on the floor. Rigging up brooder house roosts
each year is a job very easy to neglect. Fix up some moveable
permanent roosts as shown above and have the job done
for fiv.e years or so. The size of the set of roosts depend on
size and shape of brooder house. Make the width of roosts
exactly that of the netting to be used, as pointed out in the pic-
ture. When frame is made, cover '\vith I-inch mesh chicken
wire t41en put roosts on top. After this is done, turn frame up-
side down and tack the mesh wire to under side of roosts to
prevent sagging.
(,
Summer range shelter, clean ground and green feed mak healthy pull ts.
Don't Skimp On Feeders And Waterers
H ERE ARE a few styles in baby chick feeders and wateringdevices-take your choice but have enough of them and
keep them clean. "Enough" means that half
the chicks can eat at one time-one 2-foot
feed trough per 50 chicks. Have enough
drinking fountains that there will be no wait-
ing lines for a drink.
13
For Half Grown Stuff
POOR PULLETS never pay profits" Keep them gro.wing withplenty of feed and water in feeders and waterers designed
for t eir size. Make the reel on the feeders adjustable (raise or
lower) to suit the size of birds. The hen size feeder will do
without the stand. Allow one foot of trough for 15 pullets.
Put the feeders in the shade and move tllem a few feet
twice per week. Chickens don't like hot water in summer any
more than people, nor do they like to "walk a mile" for a drink.
Give them plenty of clean water in the shade near the feeders.
14
A handy fatte .nlng coop.
Make hipping coop light.
15
Oat sprouter.
Cooperative Extension Work in Agriculture and Home Economics, Agricultural and Me-
chanical CoUE!R'e of Texas and United States Department of Agriculture Cooperatin.r.
Distributed in furtherance of the Acts of Congress of May 8 and June 30, 1914.
lOM-2-34-Rev.
16


English

Poultry Yard Equipment.

Texas A&amp;M Repository

-71•.. . ·Issued .By].... ..he Extension SerV'lce, IAgr'cultural C .Mechanical College of Texas I,an t e. U' • 0 par ment· of AQri'culture-,O. B. Marfn Director, COlleqe Station,Texas 1. . '" jForewordBAD LUCK is generally bad management. It's not the bigthings that make most folks fail with chickens-it's thelittle things. Not enough mash troughs, poor water facil-ities, lack of nests, dirty houses, no shade and such like arethe little things that make bad luck.This bulletin shows some simple equipment found onsuccessful poultry farms here and there over the state, justinexpensive "chicken furniture" that will make a big differ-ence in the management-and the luck-of your flock.The furniture isn't everything, of course, and you canget other bulletins on housing, feeding, and culling, fromyour county or home dem.onstration agent er from theExtension Service, College Station, Texas.2Poultry Yard EquipmentBy E. N. HolmgreenExtension Poultry Husbandmanau CAN drive nails with a rock or the heel of your shoe,but it's a hard way of doing an easy job. Keeping chick-ens is year round work. A few tools of the trade will makethe work much easier.The sled is fine for moving manure (out to the gardenwhere it belongs), hauling water, moving litter, mash troughs,feed, coops of chickens and a hundred other things on thefarm. As the advertisements say, "Ask the man who ownsone." The scraper to the right of the sprayer in the above pic-ture is just the thing for scrap,ing the dropping boards, clean-ing roosts, troughs, and the like. Make it out of a worn-outhoe by simply heating a.nd straightening out the neck. Don'toverlook the big fork (any cotton seed handler has them),it's handy for moving dirty litter. A putty knife is a fine ad-dition for scraping out corners and other small places.3C'atching Coop Is A Time SaverCULLING, worming, vaccinating, or otherwise handling acouple hundred hens is a terrible job if you have to chasethem all around the house to catch them. It's such workthat it's p'ut off and put off and often left undone. Jobs likethis that you never get around to are fine starters of bad luck.The simple little catching coop shown on the front coverwill completely change the complexion of the work. Any sort ofcoop will do if it has a hole in one end to let the chicken inand another somewhere else to take them out. A handy wayof fixing the door in the top where birds are removed is tostretch two flat strips of an old inner tube over the opening.Let one strip over-lap the other ab'out two inches. Birds areeasy to get out and the "door" always stays closed. S t thecatching coop against anopening in the corner ofthe house; then "seine"them into the coop witha lO-foot length of poul-try wire.Make Water HandyW .HY BE, STI GYwith water whenit's the cheapest thingchickens need? Eggs aretwo-thirds water, andhens can't make themvery fast if forced to runto the barn lot or tankevery time they want adrink. Water must beconvenient to the hen.If water is piped tothe house, then somesuch handy system asshown at left will solvethe problem. Note theFor .running water. wire over the center of4the trough to keep chickens out. An automatic float instead ofthe faucet will help. With this system don't forget to arrangedrainage for waste water. Pipe the waste outside the house.Run it into a hole dug 3 feet each way and filled with rocks.This lets the water soak down and does not leave wet, sloppyplaces to start disease. To help further, cover the hole withchicken netting.A row of 14 or 16-quart heavy galvanized buckets in theflock house is a good system. By using a bucket as the watervessel, it will likely be washed when refilled. When water iscarried in a bucket to fill some other vessel, the other vesselis seldom kept clean.To avoid a sloppy, disease-breeding floor around thebucket, set in a pan, protecting the hens from the dirty waterthat will slop into the pan by a wire covering. To do this geta tinsmith to make a square pan about 2 feet square. Build asquare wooden frame to set down over the pan and cover theframe with V2-inch mesh hardware cloth. Cut a hole in thecenter large enough for the bucket to set through. Some sortof wire guard over the top will keep the hens off from thebucket. ( ote inset in above picture) . ,..~-~5(.)Make Mash Troughs To OrderHE HE is a high speed piece of machinery. Don't slowup egg laying by making her continually wait her turnat the feed trough. With the right feed the more she eats,the more eggs she will lay. Provide one foot of trough sp,acefor each 10 hens. Don't count both sides-a 5-foot trough has5 feet of trough, not 10, and will accommodate 50 hens.Poultrymen say the reel type trough illustrated below isa good one. The revolving reel-a piece of 1x2-keeps chickensout of the trough and flips off any birds that try to standwhere droppings.·will dirty the feed. The reel has a nail in eachend as an axle which fits into a slot in the end pieces. The reellifts out making cleaning or refilling easy. The stand helpsin the laying house by raising the trough away from the litter" "Jx2~PERSPECTIVEReel type mash trough.6and dirt on the floor and alsoaway from the hens that arenot eating. For larger breedsmove the standing boards fur-ther from the trough. For out-side use remove the reel andfasten a "V" type cover as atop to keep out light rains.Hens Must Have ShadeA CHICKEN'S normal temperature is 106 degrees. Theymu t have shade in summer. The best way, of course,is to have some good shade trees on the flock range, but ittakes time to grow trees. Meanwhile the wrong way is to letthem find their own shade in little loafing groups under thewagon and barn and along the fence row. Give them a goodbig thatch shade with water and feed troughs under it tokeep them busy. Build the shade about 6 feet off the ground.Low hade is hot and does little good.A good shade-euily bunt.7Have ORe Nest to Five Henso ONE KNOWS why sixteen hens want to lay in the samenest when other nests are empty. They must be humor-ed in this, however, by building them a good system of nests,one nest to each 5 '. hens. This will cut down the broken anddirty eggs and reduce pickouts and prolapses.The picture below shows demountable nests placed out ofthe way on end walls or partitions. The diagram on the nextpage sht>w's how the nests may be p,ut up in sections to beeasily demountab,le. This construction allows for variation inthe number of nests by adding or lessening the number oftiers. Make nests 12 inches square and 14 inches high. A wirebottom instead of boards improves them for warmer section.In low production mo.nths, close up a tier or two.Hen8~will want to lay here.8Trap estsI F YOU WANT to trap llest,put on a good "front."Illustrated below; is one styleof trap nest front that easilygoes on or off the regularnests. Such trap nest frontsare comparatively cheap" ser-viceable and work fine.The front makes the trap nest.A convenient broody coop.Don't Let A Hen Get Too MotherlyBROODY HENS don't lay eggs. Get them back to work bybreaking them up, quickly. If the broody coop is con en-iently located, right in the flock house, it can be used promptly.If it's a hundred yards away under "that nice tree" it's tempt-ing to wait until a whole handful of hens are broody beforeputting them up.' A wlre-'c~p su~pended'-with-wires -from theroof about a foot off the ground is just the thing. Put the"broodies" up immediately and feed them just like the layersbut add a slight laxative.10It's Cleanliness Th·at Counts In Brooder HousesBROODER HOU,SES ought to be cleaned daily, but poultry-men rarely do it until disease hits and then it's too late.Pecking around in the filth on the floor spreads disease. Don'trun the chance of being care1ess. Fix a hardware cloth (~ailscreen) brooder house floor. This raised wire platform letsthe droppings fall through where the chicks can't reach them.Make the wire floor of 1/2-inch mesh hardware cloth nailedon frames of 1x4's set edgeways with cross pieces set 30 inch-es apart to prevent the wire from sagging. Make the framesin 'sections for easy handling. Set the section together leav-ing walkway around the edges. Put the hover, water and feedvessels on top of the wire. If a coal brooder is used, set it ona sand box of 1x4's the size of the base of the stove and makethe floor frames fit around the sand box. Cover floor lightlywith litter to prevent droppings from sticking. Clean onceevery week or 10 days for good sanitation.Wire floor saves labor and chicks.11Build a set of roosts for the brooder house.Fix' Special Roosts For ChicksT EACH THE C,HICKS to roost while in the brooder house.If you don't, chicks which want and ought to be on roostswill be crowding on the floor. Rigging up brooder house roostseach year is a job very easy to neglect. Fix up some moveablepermanent roosts as shown above and have the job donefor fiv.e years or so. The size of the set of roosts depend onsize and shape of brooder house. Make the width of roostsexactly that of the netting to be used, as pointed out in the pic-ture. When frame is made, cover '\vith I-inch mesh chickenwire t41en put roosts on top. After this is done, turn frame up-side down and tack the mesh wire to under side of roosts toprevent sagging.(,Summer range shelter, clean ground and green feed mak healthy pull ts.Don't Skimp On Feeders And WaterersH ERE ARE a few styles in baby chick feeders and wateringdevices-take your choice but have enough of them andkeep them clean. "Enough" means that halfthe chicks can eat at one time-one 2-footfeed trough per 50 chicks. Have enoughdrinking fountains that there will be no wait-ing lines for a drink.13For Half Grown StuffPOOR PULLETS never pay profits" Keep them gro.wing withplenty of feed and water in feeders and waterers designedfor t eir size. Make the reel on the feeders adjustable (raise orlower) to suit the size of birds. The hen size feeder will dowithout the stand. Allow one foot of trough for 15 pullets.Put the feeders in the shade and move tllem a few feettwice per week. Chickens don't like hot water in summer anymore than people, nor do they like to "walk a mile" for a drink.Give them plenty of clean water in the shade near the feeders.14A handy fatte .nlng coop.Make hipping coop light.15Oat sprouter.Cooperative Extension Work in Agriculture and Home Economics, Agricultural and Me-chanical CoUE!R'e of Texas and United States Department of Agriculture Cooperatin.r.Distributed in furtherance of the Acts of Congress of May 8 and June 30, 1914.lOM-2-34-Rev.16

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Poultry Yard Equipment.

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Texas A&M University

Texas A&M Repository

Poultry Yard Equipment.

Abstract

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Full text

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Texas A&M University

Texas A&amp;M Repository

Texas A&M Repository