Chapter 18

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.