Egg Farming the Most Profitable Branch of Poultry Keeping
The profits are surer and larger. The reason this is not more widely
known is because, in the past, few people have been able to resist the
temptation of attempting to cover a number of the different branches
of poultry culture. They have tried to get into the “fancy,” and
have dreamed of taking a blue ribbon at Madison Square Garden, or at
some other large Show. Then the broiler branch has engrossed their
attention, and from that they have gone on to soft roasters, and
the other phases of the slaughter house side of poultry for market
purposes, and they have endeavored to cover all the different branches
from which money is made in poultry, while entirely overlooking the
fact that this is an age of specialization, and that the person who
would succeed in any business must make up his mind to follow one
branch of it, and bring that branch up to the highest efficiency.
Developing the Great Layer
From the start the Builders of The Corning Egg Farm, at Bound Brook, N.
J., realized these conditions, and were never led into side issues but
gave their entire thought and attention to the development of a great
layer, realizing that if this was to be accomplished everything except
an egg must be considered a by-product, and disposed of along the line
of least resistance: in short carrying out the Scriptural injunction,
“This one thing I do.” This one thought has been so successfully
adhered to that the development of The Corning Egg Farm in five years
has been remarkable in its production of the greatest laying type of
hen yet produced, the Corning Strain Single Comb White Leghorn, placing
the Farm head and shoulders above any other Egg Farm anywhere in the
Country.
Egg Farming is profitable not only when carried on in a large way, but,
to the suburban dweller, a small number of hens in the back yard is a
profitable investment, and the system, as worked out on The Corning
Egg Farm, succeeds with a few hens, and enables the owner of a small
plot of land to always have sanitary, fresh eggs, to reduce his grocery
bills, and materially increase the pleasure of suburban life.
Corning Method in Small Flocks
Two illustrations of the working out of the Corning Method in a small
way would doubtless be of interest. While it is true that the 16 feet
wide House is the most desirable from all standpoints, the length of
the house may be anything from 20 feet to 200 feet, as the house is of
sectional construction, 20 feet being a section.
In the back yard of a gentleman living in Bound Brook was kept a small
pen of birds, in all eighteen, composed of hens and pullets. These were
a mixture of Barred Rocks and Rhode Island Reds. The pullets were of
early hatch and should have come into eggs at least in the first week
of October. The hens completed the moult much earlier than is generally
expected, and still the owner was without eggs.
Different methods, and nostrums of guaranteed egg producing foods,
were tried, but all without success. After a call at The Corning Egg
Farm, he stated that in one week and three days the first eggs were
found in the nests, and the continuance of the Corning Method of
feeding and working the hens produced eggs steadily through the Winter
months, beginning with the middle of December, and the birds continued
to lay more than an average output until they went into the moult the
following Fall.
A gentleman, who has a small place within a mile of The Corning Egg
Farm, some four years ago purchased hatching eggs from our Breeding
Pen, and the following Fall he also bought a small pen of Breeders. He
aims to produce and carry through the Winter about one hundred pullets,
and for four years now, by adhering strictly to the Corning Method, and
with the Corning Strain Single Comb White Leghorns, he has met with a
success almost phenomenal.
Before he became conversant with the Corning Method (and with the stock
he was then carrying before beginning with the Corning Strain) his
success was represented by zero, but to-day his balance sheets, which
he displays with great pride, are extremely interesting reading.
This gives a very fair illustration of two small flocks of different
size, and of the results obtained.
On Large Farms
Turning now to the story of two egg farms which have been built within
the last two years, one in New Jersey and the other in Pennsylvania, we
find again most interesting and successful conditions.
The Pennsylvania Farm started its first season by the purchase from
us of fifteen hundred hatching eggs. The owner came to our Farm and
asked our assistance in planning his campaign of growth. His hatch from
the fifteen hundred eggs, and he never had run an incubator before,
was some 75 per cent. of all eggs set, and, by following the feeding
methods prescribed, his mortality was very low. He placed in his Laying
House that Fall some five hundred pullets, and in July, 1910, he had
sent us an order for three thousand eggs for the season of 1911.
As he told this story on a visit to The Corning Egg Farm, in the
month of February, 1911, he had done the almost impossible, simply
by following the Method laid down in the literature published by The
Corning Egg Farm, and had made money from the second month that his
pullets had begun to lay. The quality of his eggs was such that he took
over the trade of the largest hotel in a neighboring city, so far as he
was able to supply their wants.
[Illustration: PANORAMIC VIEW OF PART OF THE CORNING EGG FARM,
PHOTOGRAPHED IN OCTOBER, 1910.]
The Jersey Egg Farm referred to is owned and run by a gentleman of
advanced years. His first season’s start was on a very small scale, but
he was most successful in bringing his pullets to the laying point, and
getting a remarkable output of eggs through the Winter months. In his
district he was able to dispose of all his eggs to people who came to
the door and paid the cash for them at prices ten to twenty cents per
dozen above the market. The Corning Egg Farm received from him a very
large order for hatching eggs for the season of 1911, and this Fall he
had an elegant flock of pullets ready to house and turn out an ever
increasing supply of eggs for the coming Winter.
These four illustrations are a few of the many which The Corning Egg
Farm is able to point to as the result of the use of its Method.