Florewood Plantation Poultry House

• the lower story was used for chickens (for meat) and peacocks (for decorations)
• the upper story was used for pigeons and squab -- a young (about 4 weeks old) domesticated pigeon that has never flown and is therefore extremely tender -- both of which were eaten
• the "droppings" from all the fowl concentrated on the ground and were used as fertilizer in the garden and fields. Animal manure for fertilizing cropland was in such short supply in the South that planters used poultry houses to collect valuable mature. Guano (Spanish for bird feces), a natural fertilizer made from bird and bat droppings (from caves in the case of bats), was a prized commodity during the 19th century and heavily traded by European and American traders. In fact, the U.S. government passed the Guano Island Act of 1856 which sanctioned U.S. citizens to take possession of any unclaimed, uninhabited island in the world that contained guano. Navassa became a U.S. territory because of its bird droppings.

Created by Ingolf Vogeler on 30 April 1996; last revised on 09 March 2005.