The Dollar Hen Part 2

Broilers, Mature Fowls.

I will now discuss these products more in detail. Poultry, other than chickens, I do not care to discuss at length, because it is not for the purpose of the book, and because the demand for other kinds of poultry is limited and the chance for the growth of the business small.

The Duck Business.

The duck business is the most highly commercialized at the present time of any branch of the poultry business. The duck is the oldest domestic bird and was hatched by artificial incubation in China, when our ancestors were gnawing raw bones in the caves of Europe.

The duck is the most domestic of birds and will thrive under more machine-like methods and without that touch of nature and of the owner's kindly interest so necessary to the welfare of the fowls of the gallinaceous order. The green duck business is about twenty years old and has become an established business in every sense of the word. The largest plants now produce about one hundred thousand ducks per annum. The profits at present are not large even for the most successful plants, because the demand is limited and the production has reached such a point that cost of production and selling price bear a definite relation as in all established businesses. The green duck business is not an easy one for the novice because the margin between cost (chiefly food cost) and selling price is low, and unless the new man can reduce the cost of production or raise his selling price in some way, he will have no advantage over the old and successful firms.

Squab Business Overdone.

The business of producing pigeon squabs resembles the duck business in the sense that it has been reduced to a successful system. The production of squabs has grown until the demand is satisfied and the price has fallen to just that figure that will continue to bring in a sufficient number of squabs from the plants which are already established, or which continue to be established by those who do not stop to investigate the relation between the cost of production and the prevailing prices.

Turkeys Not a Commercial Success.

In the case of turkeys, we find exactly opposite conditions. The price of turkeys has risen with the price of chickens and eggs, until one would think that there would be great money in the business, and there is, for the motherly farm wife who has the knack of bringing the little turks through the danger of delicate babyhood. But just as the duck is more domesticated than the chicken, so the turkey, which yet closely resembles its wild ancestor, is less domestic and has as yet failed to surrender to the ways of commercial reasoning, the chief factor of which is artificial brooding.

The presence of a disease called blackhead has done vast injury to the turkey industry in the northeastern section of the country. In the South the industry has been booming. Especially in Tennessee and Texas, I found great local pride in the turkey crop. I certainly would advise any farm wife, in sections where blackhead does not prevail, to try her hand at turkey raising. As to her advisability of continuance in the business, the number of turkeys at the end of the season will be the best judge.

Guinea Growing a New Venture.

The guinea growing business is the newest of the poultry industries.

In fact, it may be said of guineas, as of our grandmother's tomatoes, "Folks had them around without knowing they were of any use." The new use for guineas is as a subst.i.tute for game. Guinea broilers make quail-on-toast and older ones are good for grouse, prairie chicken or pheasant. The retail price in the large cities runs as high as $1.50 to $2.00 a pair. It will probably not pay to raise them unless one is sure of receiving as much as 50 cents each.

As for the rearing of guineas, they may be considered on a parallel case with turkeys, if anything they are even more difficult to raise in large quant.i.ties. I would also advise this additional precaution: Look up the market in the locality before attempting guinea rearing.

Geese--the Fame of Watertown.

As for the goose business, the writer must admit that he doesn't know much about it. In fact, the most of my knowledge concerning this business was acquired by a visit to Watertown, Wis., which is the center of the noodled goose industry

The Watertown geese are fed by hand every two hours day and night.

They sell to the Hebrew trade at as much per pound as the goose weighs, and have brought as high as $14.00 apiece. All of this is interesting, but I hold that the reader who is willing to take instruction will do better to be guided toward those branches of the poultry industry for the products of which there is a great and increasing demand. So we will leave the goose and guinea business to the venturesome spirits and consider the various branches of the chicken industry.

The Ill-omened Broiler Business.

The broiler business stands to-day as the ill-omened valley in the poultry landscape. As a rule broiler production has not and probably will not pay. I know of a few exceptions--about enough to prove the rule.

Most poultry writers, when they make the statement that broilers do not pay, insert the phrase "As an exclusive business" after the word broilers. This is merely a ruse to take the rough edge off an unpleasant statement, for it certainly hurts the poultry editor to admit that a much exploited branch of the industry is a failure.

Nevertheless it is a failure and the more frankly we admit the fact, the less good capital and good brains will be wasted in the attempt to produce at a profit something which is, and probably always will be, produced at a loss.

The reason the broiler is produced at a loss is that 95 per cent. of the broilers produced are a by-product of egg, fancy and general poultry production, and as such their selling price is not determined by the cost of production, or the supply determined by the demand. That the broiler business received the boom that it did, is due to plain ignorance of the cost of production, or to the appreciation that the ability to rear young chicks could find a more profitable outlet than in broiler production. Let us take an a.n.a.logous case. Suppose a city man should discover the fact that there was a demand for dried casein from skim milk. With pencil and paper he could easily figure profits in the business. If this dreamer would attempt to keep cows for the production of casein and throw away his b.u.t.ter fat, we would have an a.n.a.logous case to the broiler raiser who does not keep his pullets for egg production.

The young c.o.c.kerel, like skim milk, is a by-product and may pay over the cost of feeding, or some other specific item, but that he does not pay the whole cost, including wages for the manager is proven by two facts: First, every large broiler plant yet started has either failed flatly or s.h.i.+fted its main line to other things; second, egg farmers would be only too glad to buy pullets at the price for which they sell the c.o.c.kerels--a confession that it costs more to produce broilers than they will bring.

The conception of the broiler business when it was boomed twenty years ago was to produce broilers in early spring, when other folks had none. It was, like the early watermelon, or the early strawberry business--to make its profits in extreme prices.

This idea received several severe blows from the hands of modern progress. One is the development of poultry fattening and crate feeding in this country. This has resulted in supplying the consumer with choice chicken-flesh that can be produced more economically than broilers. Formerly it was a case of eating old hen--rooster, age unknown, or broilers--now we have capon, roaster, crate-fattened chickens and green ducks, all rivals for the place formerly occupied exclusively by the broiler.

Again, the improvement of s.h.i.+pping and dressing facilities, the universal introduction of the refrigerator car and the introduction into the central west of the American breeds, has flooded the eastern market with a large amount of spring chickens--by-products of the egg business on the farm--which are almost equal in quality to the down-eastern product.

The most prominent reason of the lessened profit in broilers is the development of the cold storage industry. Cold storage destroys the element of season, and allows only that margin of profit that the consumer is willing to pay for a fresh killed broiler from a Jersey broiler plant, as compared with last summer's product from the Iowa farms. From a summer copy of Farm Poultry, I quote the Boston market:

Fresh killed Northern and Eastern: Fowls, choice 15c Broilers, choice to fancy 23-25c Western, ice packed: Fowls, choice 14c Broilers, choice 20-22c

Western frozen: Fowls, choice................. 14c Broilers, choice..............18-20c Eggs: Nearly fancy.................. 26c Western choice........17-1/2-18-1/2c

To complete our comparison I turn to the previous winter and find that the best storage eggs are quoted at 19c, when the best fresh are selling at 35c. This was a poor storage season and a quotation of 22c and 25c would perhaps be a fairer comparative figure. We find the per cent, of premium on the local product to be:

Fowls, local over fresh western........... 7 per cent.

Fowls, local over frozen western.......... 7 per cent.

Broilers, local over fresh western........14 per cent.

Broilers, local over frozen western.......26 per cent.

Eggs, local over fresh western............30 per cent.

Eggs, local over storage western..........37 per cent.

I consider these general facts concerning the failure of broiler production, and the logical explanations given, as far more convincing than any figures I could give concerning the detailed cost of production. Nor am I capable of giving as accurate figures as I can in the case of poultry keeping for egg production, for I have had neither the desire nor the opportunity to look them up. The following suggestive a.n.a.lysis I submit for the purpose of pointing out why the cost of production is too great to allow a profit. We may consider the chick marketing as May, the weight as 1-1/4, and the price as 35 cents a pound, or, putting it roundly a price of 50 cents a bird.

Now, May broilers mean February eggs. If the reader will refer to the tables of hatchability and mortality he will see that for our northern states this is one of the worst seasons for hatching. A hatchability of 40 per cent, times a liveability of 50 per cent, gives a net liveability of 20 per cent. Now, anyone with the ability to produce high grade eggs at that time a year, could get about 40c a dozen for them, which raises the egg cost per broiler to about 17 cents. The feed cost per broiler is small, usually estimated at 12 cents, and this makes a cost of 29 cents. Now, let us allow a cent for expense of selling charges and forget all about investment, fuel and incidentals, we have left a margin of 20 cents.

Before going farther let us look at the labor bill. Suppose it is a one-man plant. Suppose the owner sets a value on his services of $1,200 per annum. That is pretty good, but few men who set a lower value on their services will have acc.u.mulated enough capital to go into the business. At 20 cents each it will take 6,000 broilers to make $1,200. That will take 30,000 eggs and at three settings will require 40 240-egg incubators, which, of a good make, will cost $1,260. To spread the hatching out over a longer period is to run into cheap prices on the one hand, or a still impossible egg season on the other. It will take upwards of a hundred brooders to house the chicks.

There is no use of going farther till we have solved these difficulties. First we have more work than one man can do; second, we require a number of hatchable eggs that cannot be bought in winter without a campaign of advertising and canva.s.sing for them, that would make them cost double our previous figure. To produce them oneself would require a flock of 2,500 hens. When a man gets to that point in the business he is out of the broiler business and an egg farmer, and will do the same thing, hatch the chicks when eggs are cheap and fertile, selling his surplus c.o.c.kerels for 25 cents each and permit the storage man to freeze them until the following spring to compete with the broiler man's expensively produced goods.

The effort at early broiler production was a natural result of the combination of the idea of artificial incubation with our grandmother's pride in having the first setting hen. But in the present age the man who attempts it is rowing against the current of economical production, for the cheaply produced broiler can be stored until the season of scarcity, with but slight loss in quality. To produce broilers in the season of scarcity, necessitates the consumption of a product (eggs) which cannot be so successfully stored, with a lesser quant.i.ty of that same product in its season of plenty. We will give the production of broilers no further attention save as a by-product of egg production.

South Sh.o.r.e Roaster.

The production of South Sh.o.r.e soft roasters in a local section of Ma.s.sachusetts, offers a successful contrast with the broiler business and is, so far as the writer knows, the only case in the United States where pullets are profitably diverted from egg production. The process of roaster production is essentially as follows:

The incubators are set in the fall or early winter, and the chicks reared in brooder houses. As soon as the tender age is past, the chickens are put in simple colony houses where, with hopper fed corn, beef sc.r.a.p and rye on the range, they grow throughout the winter and spring. They are sold from May 1st to July 1st and bring such prices that the c.o.c.kerels are caponized yet not sold as capons, showing them to be the highest priced chicken flesh in the market save small broilers. Now, the income of roasters is two to five times as much per head as that of broilers. The added expense is only a matter of feed, which bears about the same ratio to weight as with broilers. The great advantage of the roaster business over that of the broiler business comes in the following points:

1st: The initial expense of eggs, incubation and brooding are distributed over a much larger final valuation.

2nd: The incubation period, while perhaps in as difficult a season, can be distributed over a longer period of time.

With 8 pound roasters at 30 cents, we have an expense account about as follows: cost of production to broiler stage, 30 cents as previously given. An additional food cost of 10 cents per pound of chicken flesh would still leave a margin of $1.40, so, for an income of $1,200, only about 860 birds need be raised, a proposition not beyond the capacity of one man to handle.

Allowing a spread of five hatching periods, the number of eggs required at once would be one-twelfth that demanded by the broiler farm. As it is, the roaster grower finds trouble in getting good eggs and is obliged to pay 50 cents a dozen for them, but his want is within the region of possibility.

The South Sh.o.r.e roaster district is an example of an industry built up by specialization and co-operation. But in this sense I do not mean co-operation in production, but that the product is handled by a few dealers and has become well known so that the brand sells readily at an advanced price. To a beginner in the South Sh.o.r.e district, the numerous successes and failures around him cannot help but be of great benefit. The South Sh.o.r.e roaster district of Ma.s.sachusetts is the best example of specialized community production of poultry flesh that we have in the United States. It is only rivaled by the districts in the south of England and in France.

In Chapter III the writer takes up fully the community production of eggs. The reason I have gone into this matter in regard to eggs rather than roasters, is because the egg production is much the greater industry, and, whereas the soft roaster is at a premium only in a few Boston shops, high grade eggs are universally recognized and in demand. Many of the economies, especially concerning incubation, would apply equally well in both communities. I expect to see the time when chicken flesh shall be produced with these more advanced methods in many "South Sh.o.r.e" communities.