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THE DOLLAR HEN
MILO M. HASTINGS
FORMERLY POULTRYMAN AT KANSAS EXPERIMENT STATION; LATER IN CHARGE OF THE COMMERCIAL POULTRY INVESTIGATION OF THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
SYRACUSE
NATIONAL POULTRY MAGAZINE
NATIONAL POULTRY PUBLISHING COMPANY
WHY THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN
Twenty-five years ago there were in print hundreds of complete treatises on human diseases and the practice of medicine. Notwithstanding the size of the book-shelves or the high standing of the authorities, one might have read the entire medical library of that day and still have remained in ignorance of the fact that out-door life is a better cure for consumption than the contents of a drug store. The medical professor of 1885 may have gone prematurely to his grave because of ignorance of facts which are to-day the property of every intelligent man.
There are to-day on the book-shelves of agricultural colleges and public libraries, scores of complete works on "Poultry" and hundreds of minor writings on various phases of the industry. Let the would-be poultryman master this entire collection of literature and he is still in ignorance of facts and principles, a knowledge of which in better developed industries would be considered prime necessities for carrying on the business.
As a concrete illustration of the above statement, I want to point to a young man, intelligent, enterprising, industrious, and a graduate of the best known agricultural college poultry course in the country. This lad invested some ,000 of his own and his friends' money in a poultry plant. The plant was built and the business conducted in accordance with the plans and principles of the recognized poultry authorities. To-day the young man is bravely facing the proposition of working on a salary in another business, to pay back the debts of honor resulting from his attempt to apply in practice the teaching of our agricultural colleges and our poultry bookshelves.
The experience just related did not prove disastrous from some single item of ignorance or oversight; the difficulty was that the cost of growing and marketing the product amounted to more than the receipts from its sale. This poultry farm, like the surgeon's operation, "was successful, but the patient died."
The writer's belief in the reality of the situation as above portrayed warrants him in publishing the present volume. Whether his criticism of poultry literature is founded on fact or fancy may, five years after the copyright date of this book, be told by any unbiased observer.
I have written this book for the purpose of assisting in placing the poultry business on a sound scientific and economic basis. The book does not pretend to be a complete encyclopedia of information concerning poultry, but treats only of those phases of poultry production and marketing upon which the financial success of the business depends.
The reader who is looking for information concerning fancy breeds, poultry shows, patent processes, patent foods, or patent methods, will be disappointed, for the object of this book is to help the poultryman to make money, not to spend it.
HOW TO READ THIS BOOK
Unless the reader has picked up this volume out of idle curiosity, he will be one of the following individuals:
To the reader of the fourth class I have no suggestions to make save such as he will find in the suggestions made to others.
To the reader of the third class I wish to say that if you are a shoe salesman, who has spent your evenings in a Brooklyn flat, drawing up plans for a poultry plant, I have only to apologize for any interference that this book may cause with your highly fascinating amusement.
To the poultryman already in the business, or to the man who is planning to engage in the business for reasons equivalent to those which would justify his entering other occupations of the semi-technical class, such as dairying, fruit growing or the manufacture of washing machines, I wish to say it is for you that "The Dollar Hen" is primarily written.
This book does not assume you to be a graduate of a technical school, but it does bring up discussions and use methods of illustration that may be unfamiliar to many readers. That such matter is introduced is because the subject requires it; and if it is confusing to the student he will do better to master it than to dodge it. Especially would I call your attention to the diagrams used in illustrating various statistics. Such diagrams are technically called "curves." They may at first seem mere crooked lines, if so I suggest that you get a series of figures in which you are interested, such as the daily egg yields of your own flock or your monthly food bills, and "plot" a few curves of your own. After you catch on you will be surprised at the greater ease with which the true meaning of a series of figures can be recognized when this graphic method is used.
To the reader in general, I want to say, that the table of contents, a part of the book which most people never read, is in this volume so placed and so arranged that it cannot well be avoided. Read it before you begin the rest of the book, and use it then and thereafter in guiding you toward the facts that you at the time particularly want to know. Many people in starting to read a book find something in the first chapter which does not interest them and cast aside the work, often missing just the information they are seeking. The conspicuous arrangement of the contents is for the purpose of preventing such an occurrence in this case.
WHAT IS IN THIS VOLUME
IS THERE MONEY IN THE POULTRY BUSINESS? A Big Business; Growing Bigger Less Ham and More Eggs Who Gets the Hen Money?
WHAT BRANCH OF THE POULTRY BUSINESS? Various Poultry Products The Duck Business Squabs Have Been Overdone Turkeys not Adapted to Commercial Growing Guinea Growing a New Venture Geese, the Fame of Watertown The Ill-omened Broiler Business South Shore Roasters Too Much Competition in Fancy Poultry Egg Farming the Most Certain and Profitable
THE POULTRY PRODUCING COMMUNITY Established Poultry Communities Developing Poultry Communities Will Co-operation Work? Co-operative Egg Marketing in Denmark Corporation or Co-operation
WHERE TO LOCATE Some Poultry Geography Chicken Climate Suitable Soil Marketing--Transportation Availability of Water A Few Statistics
THE DOLLAR HEN FARM The Plan of Housing The Feeding System Water Systems Out-door Accommodations Equipment for Chick Rearing Twenty-five Acre Poultry Farms Five Acre Poultry Farms
INCUBATION Fertility of Eggs The Wisdom of the Egyptians Principles of Incubation Moisture and Evaporation Ventilation--Carbon Dioxide Turning Eggs Cooling Eggs Searching for the "Open Sesame" of Incubation The Box Type of Incubator in Actual Use The Future of Incubation
FEEDING Conventional Food Chemistry How the Hen Unbalances Balanced Rations
DISEASES Don't Doctor Chickens The Causes of Poultry Diseases Chicken Cholera Roup Chicken-pox, Gapes, Limber-neck Lice and Mites
POULTRY FLESH AND POULTRY FATTENING Crate Fattening Caponizing
MARKETING POULTRY CARCASSES Farm Grown Chickens The Special Poultry Plant Suggestions From Other Countries Cold Storage of Poultry Drawn or Undrawn Fowls Poultry Inspection
QUALITY IN EGGS Grading Eggs How Eggs are Spoiled Egg Size Table The Loss Due to Carelessness Requisites of Producing High Grade Eggs
HOW EGGS ARE MARKETED The Country Merchant The Huckster The Produce Buyer The City Distribution of Eggs Cold Storage of Eggs Preserving Eggs Out of Cold Storage Improved Methods of Marketing Farm-Grown Eggs The High Grade Egg Business Buying Eggs by Weight The Retailing of Eggs by the Producer The Price of Eggs N.Y. Mercantile Exchange, Official Quotations
BREEDS OF CHICKENS Breed Tests The Hen's Ancestors What Breed?
PRACTICAL AND SCIENTIFIC BREEDING Breeding as an Art Scientific Theories of Breeding Breeding for Egg Production
EXPERIMENT STATION WORK The Stations Leading in Poultry Work The Story of the "Big Coon" Important Experimental Results at the Illinois Station Experimental Bias The Egg Breeding Work at the Maine Station
POULTRY ON THE GENERAL FARM Best Breeds for the Farm Keep Only Workers Hatching Chicks with Hens Incubators on the Farm Rearing Chicks Feeding Laying Hens Cleanliness Farm Chicken Houses
THE DOLLAR HEN
IS THERE MONEY IN THE POULTRY BUSINESS?
The chicken business is big. No one knows how big it is and no one can find out. The reason it is hard to find out is because so many people are engaged in it and because the chicken crop is sold, not once a year, but a hundred times a year.
Statistics are guesses. True statistics are the sum of little guesses, but often figures published as statistics are big guesses by a guesser who is big enough to have his guess accepted.
A Big Business; Growing Bigger
The only real statistics for the poultry crop of the United States are those of the Federal Census. At this writing these statistics are nine years old and somewhat out of date. The value of poultry and eggs in 1899, according to the census figures, was 1,000,000. Is this too big or too little? I don't know. If the reader wishes to know let him imagine the census enumerator asking a farmer the value of the poultry and eggs which he has produced the previous year. Would the farmer's guess be too big or too small?
From these census figures as a base, estimates have been made for later years. The Secretary of Agriculture, or, speaking more accurately, a clerk in the Statistical Bureau of the Department of Agriculture, says the poultry and egg crop for 1907 was over 0,000,000.
The best two sources of information known to the writer by which this estimate may be checked are the receipts of the New York market and the annual "Value of Poultry and Eggs Sold," as given by the Kansas State Board of Agriculture.
In plate I the top curve a-a gives the average spring price of Western first eggs in the New York market. The curve b-b gives the annual receipts of eggs at New York in millions of cases. Now, since value equals quantity multiplied by price, and since the quantity and values of poultry are closely correlated to those of eggs, the product of these two figures is a fair means of showing the rate of increase in the value of the poultry crop. Starting with the census value of 1,000,000 for the year 1899, we thus find that by 1907 the amount is very close to 0,000,000. This is represented by the lower line.
The value of the poultry and eggs sold in Kansas have increased as follows:
Year Value
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