31 



BULLETIN OF 



Massachusetts Boakd of Agriculture. 



ECONOMY OF LABOR IN POULTRY KEEPING ON FARMS. 



By John H. Robinson, Editor "Farm-Poultry." 



The most important problem in poultry keeping is the labor problem. 

 This is as true where the poultry keeper does his own work as where he 

 hires all or a part of it. There is no advantage in getting large egg 

 yields and growing large numbers of poultry when the margin of profit 

 is below what might be obtained on a smaller production. 



Keepers of poultry acquired several generations ago the habit of not 

 reckoning their labor, or the labor they hired, when estimating or com- 

 puting their profits on poultry. Such an error may be excused when 

 the time given to poultry would otherwise be idle time, but even then 

 it is better to give labor due consideration, for failure to do so has 

 brought thousands of ambitious poultry keepers to grief. The com- 

 mon fundamental error in the reasoning of the person who thinks that 

 because he has done well with a small flock he can do correspondingly 

 well when he devotes all or a large part of his time to poultry is failure 

 to see that the methods of managing the small flock will not, when ap- 

 plied to large numbers, enable the attendant to handle enough fowls to 

 give him a living wage for the time devoted to the flock. 



The labor problem, while most troublesome when poultry is kept on 

 a large scale, demands careful attention wherever poultry is kept for 

 profit. Even in the many cases where the poultry keeper is not de- 

 pendent upon the income from poultry it should have consideration, 

 for if it is of interest to one to make a little profit from work taken up 

 in spare time or for recreation, it should be worth while to try to make 

 as much profit as possible without making the work burdensome. One 

 of the best ways to accomplish this is by saving labor, — using every 

 possible contrivance of method or appliances to that end. Consid- 

 ered in a broad way, the saving of labor includes also the utilization of 

 inexpensive labor, and of persons who would, perhaps, otherwise be 

 unproductive. Let us discuss the question first from this point of 

 view. 



Poultry keeping was for thousands of years universally left to 

 women, children and infirm men. It was not until the industry 

 began to be boomed for the wonderful possibilities of profit in keeping 

 fowls in flocks too large to be easily managed by this class of labor that 

 able-bodied men began to regard the care of poultrj r as worth their 

 while. Then the common idea was to make money by conducting 

 operations on a large scale, or by securing large per capita returns. In 

 either case the methods used were devised and applied with little 



