1905.] 



Day-Old Chickens. 



introduction of incubators and brooders a wide field of enter- 

 prise was opened, and it was found that there was a demand for 

 chickens on the part of farmers and others. 



The business is one which offers fair returns when carried 

 out upon a sufficiently large scale. Skill in the management 

 of breeding stock and incubators is necessary, together with 

 considerable capital, constant attention, and a regular supply 

 of fertile eggs from January to June. The first consideration 

 is the number of incubators required to meet the demands of 

 customers for chickens, and these involve considerable expendi- 

 ture. Then comes the question of obtaining the eggs to fill 

 them, and this requires a large flock of fowls or an organisation 

 for securing supplies. For a plant with a capacity equal to the 

 production of, say, 1,000 chickens per week from February to 

 June, that is twenty weeks in all, at least 30,000 eggs will be 

 required. Assuming an average of sixty eggs produced by each 

 hen during that time, 600 head of stock would be needed to 

 meet the demand, which number could not be managed with- 

 out considerable labour and capital. The prime necessity- 

 is that the breeding stock shall be at liberty and not kept in 

 confined areas, for it is an undoubted fact that eggs from hens 

 highly bred, highly fed, or kept in confinement, do not hatch 

 so well artificially as they would do under hens, and the chickens 

 produced from eggs laid by them are less vigorous and do not 

 travel so well as those produced from breeding stock treated in a 

 more natural manner. Hence, if it is intended to produce all the 

 eggs required, the flocks must not only be numerous but given 

 natural conditions, and for this a large area of land is essential. 

 Another plan is to distribute flocks of fowls among farmers in 

 the district, from whom the eggs are obtained as required. 

 This plan, whilst probably a little more expensive than the 

 former, has decided advantages in that the fowls are well dis- 

 tributed, the requisite attention is in a greater number of hands, 

 and there is not the same danger of increase beyond the capacity 

 of the land ; in short, the work is divided, each partner in the 

 scheme having a general interest in the successful issue of the 

 enterprise, and those in charge of the hatching operations 

 can concentrate their efforts upon that part of the work and on 

 the business of selling and despatching the young chickens. 



