MARKETING 



75 



in many lots that are shipped shorter distances or in those 

 lots that we have retained and fed immediately after in- 

 cubation. 



It is common knowledge that the chick when hatched 

 has absorbed the yolk of the egg, or, in other words, it has 

 enough food inside of it to keep a man alive. To immediately 

 begin to overload the chick's digestive apparatus with other 

 food would appear to be folly and cause enough for many 

 of the ailments to which chicks seem to be prone. It is my 

 idea that a great many of the troubles they have are directly 

 or indirectly due to indigestion. I do not pretend to look 

 at the matter from a scientific standpoint and "know that 

 many chicks die from other causes, but a little care and 

 patience in not overloading the chick with food during the 

 first few days of its life will help materiallly to give it strength 

 to overcome other troubles. None of us would think of 

 feeding new born babies as we have been feeding our chicks; 

 colic and death would immediately ensue. 



It has been said a chick will live a week without food 

 and I have reason to believe that this is so. Last season we 

 had the pleasure of shipping 50 chicks to Laramie, Wyoming, 

 a distance of 2,600. miles, requiring 5 days and 5 nights, dur- 

 ing which time the chicks had nothing at all to eat or drink. 

 Of this lot 46 arrived in excellent condition, four being killed 

 evidently by crowding, the fifty being in one compart- 

 ment. Except for the loss of some thorough errors in feed- 

 ing on the part of the purchaser (which were later overcome) 

 the lot did well. This goes to show that the withholding of 

 food for a few days is at least no injury to the chicks; it is 

 the safest course not to hasten the first feed too much. 



Do Not Crowd Baby Chicks 



Another lesson learned from the handling of this busi- 

 ness is the desirability of keeping the broods of young chicks 

 limited in number as the crowding of chicks towards the 

 heat in a brooder is similar to the crowding to the light in 

 the shipping box and the results are the same, viz., many 

 chicks that die from trampling and suffocation. While we 

 do not know it to be so, we imagine that the development 

 of the fireless brooder came from observations in the hand- 

 ling of the day-old chick business. 



The hesitation that many people have in ordering day- 

 old chicks from fear of loss of the chicks, either en route or 

 afterwards from chilling received on their journey, is entirely 

 unwarranted. We have letter after letter in our files telling 

 the satisfaction that customers in all parts of the country 

 have had with chicks we have shipped them and we presume 

 other breeders have many similar letters. There is no reason 

 why day-old chicks shipped properly may not be transported 

 many hundreds of miles and do as well as chicks raised on 

 the home place. The business has been developed to a 

 point where most breeders, like ourselves, give evidence of 

 their faith in their ability to deliver good livable chicks by 

 guaranteeing safe delivery of the chicks to the customer. 

 Of course the breeders' responsibility ceases on the delivery 

 of the chicks as poor success with chicks often arises from 

 improper feeding, irregular handling of the brooder, unsani- 

 tary surroundings, etc., over which they can have no control. 



The baby chick business has come to stay and will con- 

 tinue to grow tremendously, and central hatching plants 

 with mammouth incubators will undoubtedly spring up in 

 great numbers; at the same time I do not believe it is going 

 to revolutionize the poultry business entirely. Eggs for 

 hatching will still be bought, as there is much fascination 

 and interest in watching the processes of incubation. Large 

 plants especially will buy eggs, as they can of course do so 

 cheaper than they can buy chicks, for the producer of day- 

 old chicks must of course allow a certain amount for con- 

 tingent expenses, such as poor hatches, poor deliveries, etc., 

 and this has to be figured in the cost of the chicks. 



Day-old chicks are of particular interest to small poultry 

 keepers, who do not keep enough poultry to warrant an 

 incubator equipment; to those who hatch with hens but 

 cannot find enough broody hens to hatch as many as they 

 want when they want them; to those who have been dis- 

 appointed in results and want chicks in a hurry; and they 

 are of interest to plants of all sizes that do not have sufiBcient 

 equipment to hatch as many chicks as they require. I do 

 not believe that the business will interfere with the hatching 

 egg trade as much as many people seem to fear, but I think, 

 on the contrary, that the increase in the egg business as well 

 as in the chick business, will be tremendous during the next 

 few years. 



SHIPPING DAY OLD CHICKS 



THE PURCHASE OF DAY-OLD CHICKS AS A MEANS OF STARTING AND RENEWING 

 STOCK GROWING IN POPULARITY— A SUITABLE CRATE FOR SHIPPING DESCRIBED 



RUDOLPH P. ELLIS 



ANYONE who contemplates starting in the poultry 

 business is confronted by seven, well-defined prob- 

 lems, if not more, the successful solution of which 

 is imperative. A failure anywhere along the line means 

 disaster to the whole undertaking. These seven problems 

 or duties that engage the poultryman'-s attention may be 

 briefly outlined as follows: 



1 — The securing (by purchase of raising) and the care, 

 especially over the winter season, of the female breeders. 



2 — The selection, raising and care of the male breeders, 

 which must be kept separated from the females and also pre- 

 vented from fighting among themselves — not always an easy 

 matter. 



3 — The correct conditions and mating so as to secure 

 fertile and strong-germed eggs, and the care in gathering 

 and keeping same until set. 



4 — Incubation — artificial or natural. 



5 — Brooding and maturing the chicks. 



6 — Handling the layers — housing, feed and care. 



7 — Marketing the eggs at a high price — not wholesaling. 



Solution of First Four Problems 



I have presented these tasks in the order in which the 

 would be poultryman has to face them. And right here I 

 believe is the great difficulty; the novice is forced to under- 

 take the very hardest parts of the business first. The first 

 four enumerated above may be classed as the breeding end 

 of the business, and they have always seemed to me the 

 most difficult. 



Few care to go to the expense (the many cannot) of pur- 

 chasing a trap-nested, pedigreed hen with a record of 160 

 to 200 eggs per year, as such a hen is worth between five 

 dollars and twenty dollars. The labor alone of trapping her 

 for a whole year is no small part of the money value. 



Similarly, pedigreeing your males on the performance of 

 their dams and sire's dams involves great labor — and all this 



