THE DAY-OLD CHICK BUSINESS 



ITS DEVELOPMENT— HOW TO SHIP CHICKS SUCCESSFULLY HUNDREDS OF MILES— MUCH 

 DEPENDS ON VITALITY OF CHICKS WHICH IN TURN DEPENDS ON VIGOROUS BREEDING 

 STOCK AND PROPER INCUBATION— STYLE OF BOX PREFERRED— CAUSES OF LOSSES EN 

 ROUTE— NATURE PROVIDES THE NECESSARY HEAT AND FOOD— LESSONS . LEARNED 

 FROM SHIPPING DAY-OLD CHICKS— WILL INCREASE GREATLY BUT WILL NOT REVOLU- 

 TIONIZE THE POULTRY BUSINESS AT ALI^-BIG SALE STILL FOR EGGS FOR HATCHING 



F. W. BRIGGS 



^< /y y/^ HILE the development of the 



^ . //\\ // day-old chick business in 



this country has been very 



rapid during the past few 



years, there are still many 



people who are unfamiliar 



with the methods used and who are not 



very clear in their minds as to what is 



meant by the term or what purpose 



the business serves. Perhaps I can say 



something of interest and value from 



our experience. 



The term "day-old chick business" 

 is applied to the business of shipping 

 newly hatched chicks direct from the 

 incubator to parties at more or less remote distances. This 

 trade was carried on successfully in England, I believe, 

 for some years before it was attempted here. I do not know 

 whether the idea originated in England or not, but I am 

 certain it has remained for poultrymen in this country to 

 develop it and extend it to wider fields, meaning by this to 

 enlarge the radius to which it is known chicks can be shipped 

 successfully. Experiments in long distance shipments and 

 in the time chicks may be on the road have, of necessity, 

 been limited in England owing to the natural geographical 

 limits and it has been only during the past two or three years 

 that knowledge of what can be done in this line has been 

 acquired by the efforts of poultrymen in this country. 



The layman or novice in the chicken business, is usually 

 much surprised to learn that chicks can be handled com- 

 mercially at all. That chicks may be shipped hundreds of 

 miles, in fact many hundreds of miles, without artificial heat 

 or food seems hardly credible to him and he is disinclined to 

 believe it. As a matter of fact we have done many things 

 successfully that we ourselves could not believe possible 

 and our experiments have taught us many things that have 

 been of benefit to us in other phases of the poultry business. 

 While the day-old chick business is in many' ways simple 

 to handle, and especially so when a thorough knowledge of 

 incubating is possessed,^ still there are some "tricks" about 

 the business and better results are usually obtained by buy- 

 ing of parties trained by study and experience to conduct it. 

 I will not enlarge on the importance of proper incuba- 

 tion in producing chicks that are endowed with good vitality 

 to endure the hardships of travel and to live well, as the 

 subject of incubating has been discussed very thor- 

 oughly in this book, and incubating with shipment in 

 view is not different from what it should be in any other 

 case. It will be realized, however, that successful shipments 

 depend in a large measure on the care with which this work 

 has been done, as regards proper temperature, ventilation, 

 moisture, etc., and, back of this, on the care that has been 

 exercised in selecting only good, healthy, vigorous birds for 

 the breeding pens. Success with chicks cannot be obtained 

 without attention to these things whether the chicks are to 



be shipped or not, but success in shipping stands in especially 

 close relation to these matters. 



Given chicks that have been incubated properly, care 

 must be taken to select those for shipment that have hatched 

 among the earliest, that are thoroughly dried off and that 

 seem strong and firm on their feet. The ones that do the 

 best are those that are crowding close to the glass of the in- 

 cubators, seeming full of an ambition to be up and doing 

 and to take part in the world of activity. One can almost 

 select the vigorous chicks by the sense of touch alone, by its 

 struggles in one's hand and by its size, a good healthy chick 

 being a plump handful. 



Before attempting to remove the chicks from the incu- 

 bator, especially in cold weather, it is imperative to have 

 the shipping packages ready to receive them so they may 

 be exposed to the chill of the air as little as possible. It 

 must be kept in mind that they are to be removed from a 

 draft-free compartment in which the temperature is running 

 . from 98 degrees to 103 degrees. To expose them for any 

 length of time to a temperature 40 or 50 degrees lower than 

 that, is to invite failure and so-called hard luck! 



Boxes Used for Shipping Chicks 



There are many forms of packages used for shipping 

 chicks from the common shoe box, lined with fiannel, with 

 holes punched in it to admit air, such as is used by the 

 farmer in transferring a few chicks from a neighbor's to his 

 own place, to the modern chick box made of heavy corru- 

 gated pasteboard, divided into compartments holding 25 

 chicks each. The package that has been in the most com- 

 mon use, however, for the past few years is a small wooden 

 box about eleven inches wide by 15 inches long and 5 inches 

 deep, holding 50 chicks. This box is sometimes covered en- 

 tirely with burlap which permits ventilation, and a small 

 one inch square piece of wood is nailed across the top to 

 prevent other packages being placed on top of it, thus 

 shutting off the supply of air. Or the box is sometimes 

 covered half with a wooden cover and half with burlap. On 

 our plant I have used this form of package almost exclu- 

 sively up to the present season, but, while we have had good, 

 perhaps unusual success in this part of the business, I have 

 not been entirely satisfied with this package and have 

 adopted a new one for use this coming season, which I am 

 confident will be much better. 



Last season we shipped over 17,000 chicks to all parts 

 of the country east of the Mississippi River, and one ship- 

 ment at least beyond, and I do not think we lost over 175 

 chicks from faults of packing, or about one per cent. I feel 

 satisfied, however, that there is no occasion for any loss at 

 all, except from accident or extraordinary carelessness. I 

 think our new package (described later) will cut down the 

 mortality very materially. 



The faults with the wooden box with burlap covering 

 seem to be that the burlap will occasionally get torn, leaving 

 an opening -at some point and letting in more than the usual 



