DISTANCES SHIPPED 



279 



sufficiently warm. The point to remember is to place the correct 

 number of chicks in a given size box. With this done, there is 

 no question as to their security. 



Mortality. — A visit to any of the large hatcheries will show that 

 it is now a common thing to ship chicks a thousand miles and 

 have them arrive at their destination in as healthy and active a 

 condition as the day they were removed from the incubator. 

 The average mortality during shipment is two per cent, which is 

 a negligible factor, and would probably exist anyhow, in placing 

 the chicks under the 

 hover in a brooder for the 

 first twenty-four hours. 

 Most hatcheries make a 

 practice of including 

 . three or four extra chicks, 

 to allow for this mortal- 

 ity. In addition to this, 

 they guarantee safe ar- 

 rival and full count, and 

 will make good anylosses, 

 providing these are re- 

 ported at the time the 

 packages are delivered 

 by the carrier's agent. 



A poultry plant in 

 Maine shipped a box of 

 fifty chicks to a town in 



{Courtesy Million Egg Farm) 

 Fig. 178. — 500 chicks ready for express ship- 

 ment. Corrugated boxes are sHpped into a 

 wooden crate for extra protection. 



Wyoming, a distance of 2600 miles, and only four of the birds per- 

 ished. Another shipment was made to New Orleans, in which the 

 chicks' were two days and three nights on the road, and they arrived 

 none the worse for their long journey. Express messengers and other 

 railroad employees are now so accustomed to handling baby chick 

 shipments, and they seem to have such a great deal of sympathy for 

 them, that the shipper is usually assured of the very best treatment. 

 Pet Shop Trade. — For the past couple of years the hatcheries 

 have found a big outlet for chicks in pet shops and 5-and-io-cent 



