WHITE WYANDOTTES
"Sam," said I, "I am going to start this poultry plant from just as near
the beginning of things as possible. I want you to dispose of every hen
on the place within the next twenty days, and to burn everything that
has been used in connection with them. We've cleared this land of
disease germs, if there were germs in it, by turning it bottom-side up;
now let's start free from the pestiferous vermin that make a hen's life
unhappy. No stock, either old or young, shall be brought here. When we
want to change our breeding, we'll buy eggs from the best fanciers and
hatch them in our own incubators. It will then be our own fault if we
don't keep our chickens comfortable and free from their enemies. This is
sound theory, and we'll try how it works out in practice. Certainly it
will be easier to keep clean if we start clean. Not one board or piece
of lumber that has been used for any other purpose shall find place in
my hen-houses. Eternal vigilance makes a full egg basket; and a full egg
basket means a lot of money at the year's end. I will never find fault
with you for being too careful Attend to the details in such way as
suits you best, provided the result is thorough and everlasting
cleanliness. Nothing less will win out, and nothing less will meet the
requirements of our factory rules.
"The first thing to do is to get the incubating cellar made. It ought to
be four feet in the ground and four feet out of it. Make it ten feet by
fifteen, inside measure, and you can easily run five two-hundred-egg
incubators. Build it near the south fence in No. 4,--that's the lot for
the hens. The walls are to be of brick, and we'll have a brick floor put
in, for it's too cold to concrete it now. Gables are to point east and
west, and each is to have a window; put the door in the middle of the
south wall, and shingle the roof. Digging through three feet of frost
will be hard, but it must be done, and done quickly. I want you to start
your incubator lamps before the 3d of February."
"I can dig the hole without much trouble,--big fire on the ground for
two or three hours will help,--and I can put on the roof and do all the
carpenter work, but I can't lay the brick."
"I'll look out for that part of the job, but I want you to see that
things are pushed, for I shall have a thousand eggs here by February 1st
and another thousand by the 25th, and these eggs mean money."
"What do you have to pay for them?"
"Ten cents apiece,--$200 for two thousand eggs."
"Well, I should say! Are they hand-painted? I wouldn't have had to quit
business if I could have sold my eggs at a quarter of that price."
"That's all right, Sam, but you didn't sell White Wyandotte eggs for
hatching. I've contracted with two of the best-known fanciers of
Wyandottes in the country to send me five hundred eggs apiece February
1st and 25th. I don't think the price is high for the stock."
"Have you decided to keep 'dottes? I hoped you would try Leghorns;
they're great layers."
"Yes, they're great summer layers, but the American birds will beat them
hollow in winter; and I must have as steady a supply of eggs as
possible. My customers don't stop eating eggs in winter, and they'll be
willing to pay more for them at that season. The Leghorn is too small to
make a good broiler, and as half the chicks come cockerels, we must look
out for that."
"Why do you throw down the Plymouth Rocks? They're bigger than 'dottes,
and just as good layers."
"I threw down the barred Plymouth Rocks on account of color; I like
white hens best. It was hard to decide between White Rocks and
Wyandottes, for there's mighty little difference between them as
all-around hens. I really think I chose the 'dottes because the first
reply to my letters was from a man who was breeding them."
"They are 'beauts,' all of them, and I'll give them a good chance to
spread themselves," said Sam.
"What percentage of hatch may we expect from purchased eggs?"
"About sixty chicks out of every hundred eggs, I reckon."
"That would be doing pretty well, wouldn't it? If we had good luck with
the sixty chicks, how many would grow up?"
"Fifty ought to."
"Of these fifty, can we count on twenty-five pullets?"
"Yes."
"That's what I was getting at. You think we might, by good luck, raise
twenty-five pullets from each hundred eggs. I'll cut that in the middle
and be satisfied with twelve, or even with ten. At that rate the two
thousand eggs that cost $200 will give me two hundred pullets to begin
the egg-making next November. That's not enough; we ought to raise just
twice that number. I'll spend as much more on eggs to be hatched by the
middle of April or the first of May, and then we can reasonably expect
to go into next winter with four hundred pullets. They will cost the
farm a dollar apiece, but the farm will have four hundred cockerels to
sell at fifty cents each, which will materially reduce the cost."
"I think you put that pretty low, sir; we ought to raise more than four
hundred pullets out of four thousand eggs."
"Everything more will be clear gain. I shall be satisfied with four
hundred. We must also get at the brooder house. This is the order in
which I want the buildings to stand in the chicken lot: first, the
incubating house, 10 feet from the south line; 40 feet north of this,
the brooder house; and 120 feet north of that, the first hen-house, with
runs 100 feet deep. We'll build other houses for the birds as we need
them. They are all to face to the south. If the brooder house is 50 feet
long and 15 feet wide, it can easily care for the eight hundred chicks,
and for half as many more, if we are lucky enough to get them.
"We'll have a five-foot walk against the north wall of this house, and a
ten-foot space north and south through the centre for heating plant and
food. This will leave a space at each side ten by twenty feet, to be cut
into five pens four feet by ten, each of which will mother a hundred
chicks or more. There must be plenty of glass in the south wall, and
we'll use overhead water pipes in each hover.
"There's no hurry about the poultry-houses. You can build one in the
early summer, and perhaps another in the fall. I expect you to do the
carpenter work on these houses. I'll see the mason at once and have him
ready by the time you've dug the hole. The incubators will be here in
good time, and we want everything ready for work as soon as the eggs
arrive."
Sam was pleased with his job; it was exactly to his liking. He took real
delight in caring for fowls, and he was especially anxious to prove to
me that it was not so much lack of knowledge as lack of capital that had
caused the downfall of his previous efforts. Sam could not then
understand why one man could sell his eggs at thirty-six cents a dozen
when his neighbor could get only sixteen; he found out later.
The mason's work for the incubator house and the foundation wall for the
brooder house cost $290. The lumber bill for these two, including doors
and windows, was $464. The five incubators, $65, and the hot-water
heater for the brooder house, $68, made the total $897. Add to this $400
paid during two months for eggs, and we have $1297 as the cost of
starting the poultry plant.