Selections from Prince T Woods' book "Open Air Poultry Houses", pages 73-79.
https://archive.org/details/openairpoultryho00wood_0/page/78/mode/2up?view=theater
"WHEN KEEPING POULTRY in a warm climate it is only a short step from open-front housing to no house at all or to simply a roofed shelter. The open-front house will give excellent service where the summers are hot and the winters are cold or wherever the climatic conditions and variations are such that a house is needed. It has been successfully used in the far north and the far south, but for the south and for tropical or semi-tropical climates a simple roofed shelter or an entirely open cage roost, depending on the frequency of heavy rains, is the most satisfactory method of protecting roosting fowls.
...
Where rain storms are common and the rainfall heavy, some sort of roofed shelter should be provided. All that is necessary are roosts about 18 inches above the ground, enclosed in wire netting and a not too high roof to keep off the rain. See "Stoddard's Bower," Fig. 23.
H. H. Stoddard, of Riviera, Texas, has devised a cage roost that has proved most satisfactory poultry quarters in the warm dry Gulf coast section of Texas. These consist of cages, of one inch mesh poultry netting, containing roosts. These cages may be built any shape or dimensions desired or found most convenient. They should be made easily movable and with as little woodwork as possible.
The cage roost is designed to provide entirely open-air sleeping quarters, there is no roof, and at the same time to protect the fowls from coyotes, owls, and other night marauders.
Mr. Stoddard says that the heat of southwest Texas is steady and prolonged rather than excessively severe. He finds that cage roosts are particularly well suited to the climatic conditions. Long heavy rains are not common.
...
Where heavy rains occur frequently during the "wet season" I should prefer a roost that has a roof to afford some protection from the rain. It may not be absolutely necessary, but it is not contrary to nature. The fowls are confined in the cage roost and they cannot get out to seek shelter when heavy rains come. If they were free to do as they chose, they would in all probability seek a sheltered roost in a thick foliaged tree on the opproach of a heavy rain storm. Occasional heavy rains would do no harm but I should not want to expose my flocks to frequent successive heavy rain storms. It is possible to have too much of a good thing...."
https://archive.org/details/openairpoultryho00wood_0/page/78/mode/2up?view=theater
"WHEN KEEPING POULTRY in a warm climate it is only a short step from open-front housing to no house at all or to simply a roofed shelter. The open-front house will give excellent service where the summers are hot and the winters are cold or wherever the climatic conditions and variations are such that a house is needed. It has been successfully used in the far north and the far south, but for the south and for tropical or semi-tropical climates a simple roofed shelter or an entirely open cage roost, depending on the frequency of heavy rains, is the most satisfactory method of protecting roosting fowls.
...
Where rain storms are common and the rainfall heavy, some sort of roofed shelter should be provided. All that is necessary are roosts about 18 inches above the ground, enclosed in wire netting and a not too high roof to keep off the rain. See "Stoddard's Bower," Fig. 23.
H. H. Stoddard, of Riviera, Texas, has devised a cage roost that has proved most satisfactory poultry quarters in the warm dry Gulf coast section of Texas. These consist of cages, of one inch mesh poultry netting, containing roosts. These cages may be built any shape or dimensions desired or found most convenient. They should be made easily movable and with as little woodwork as possible.
The cage roost is designed to provide entirely open-air sleeping quarters, there is no roof, and at the same time to protect the fowls from coyotes, owls, and other night marauders.
Mr. Stoddard says that the heat of southwest Texas is steady and prolonged rather than excessively severe. He finds that cage roosts are particularly well suited to the climatic conditions. Long heavy rains are not common.
...
Where heavy rains occur frequently during the "wet season" I should prefer a roost that has a roof to afford some protection from the rain. It may not be absolutely necessary, but it is not contrary to nature. The fowls are confined in the cage roost and they cannot get out to seek shelter when heavy rains come. If they were free to do as they chose, they would in all probability seek a sheltered roost in a thick foliaged tree on the opproach of a heavy rain storm. Occasional heavy rains would do no harm but I should not want to expose my flocks to frequent successive heavy rain storms. It is possible to have too much of a good thing...."
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