The Dollar Hen | Page 8

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 analysis 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 accumulated 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 canvassing 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 cockerels 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 quantity 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 Shore Roaster.
The production of South Shore soft roasters in a local section of Massachusetts, offers a successful contrast with the broiler business and is, so far as