Pigpen from Jagienna, mid-19th century
It is an example of the five farm buildings existing on the area of the Museum which are designated for breeding animals. Buildings of this type deteriorated more quickly due to a high degree of damp connected with animal breeding run there. Formerly, straw was treated as fodder and animals used to stand in mud without litter. The pigsty was constructed in 1850s as log structure. The smoothly thatched gable roof is vertically boarded in the gables. In one of the gables, there is an entrance to the attic where hay and straw for the animals were kept.
The building is composed of four rooms: two for the cattle and two for the pigs with a hen roost. It presents equipment typical of rooms for livestock. Poultry house meant a room for the poultry, however it usually was a bit of space in a cow barn or a pigsty with a hen roost and a section for waterfowl. Poultry breeding was an activity and a source of extra money for farmers' wives, whereas farmers considered poultry to be something worse than pigeons, who were their favourites and for who they never stinted on fodder. This antagonism is clearly visible in the difference between a simple roost in the cow barn and an ornamental pigeon loft located in front of the building and playing a representative role in this homestead.