Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1877-06-22
A Colossal Poultry Farm.

Stoddard's Poultry World for May
contains an elaborate illustrated article
descriptive of the immense poultry es-
tablishment of Mr.. VIM. C. Baker, at
Cresskill- on the Hudson, which is full
of interest to American farmers and
poultrymen; this grand steam Matching
place for chickens being, beyond com
parison, the largest successful artificial
fowl-raising establishment in the known
world The following extracts from the
account of the Baker place will be read
with interest:
At some rods from the family resi-
dence and ornamented grounds, stand
the great glass-covered chicken-houses,
the incubating- house, the enormous lay
ing house. (the latter range four hun
dred and sixty feet long,, the forcing
house, or patent feeding rooms, the
aughter-house, store rooms, etc, which
constitute this immense fOwl-raiSing es-
tablishment.
After practically experimenting in
various ways for several. years, During
which period Mr.. Baker had expended
in these experiments, and in the erection
and appointments of his numerous bull
dings, some $4,000, his establishment
for Matching chickens, ducks and tur-
keys is to-day brought down to very
fine point, assuredly, and upon Mr.. Ba-
ker's plan the thing is entirely feasible.
THE great brooding- house is long,
glazed building, fashioned like a pitch
roof greenhouse, with broadside aspect
east and south. A two and half story
building at the end Ito which this is at
tacheD is commodious dwelling house
for the attendants, ETC., and contains
Mr. Bakers private Office, the incubat-
ing rooms, a dining hall and other apart
ments above, while the basement is de-
voted to store rooms, boilerroom, elec-
trio battery department, heating appar-
atus, etc.
Passing through the battery cham
Der, we enter the incubating depart
ment. Here are quietly produced thous-
ands of chicks by artificial heat, every
week. This chamber is about twenty
feet square, protected by double sets Of
windows, and three ranges OF huge OBJ
long incubators stand ranged through
the center, while lesser range, similar
ly constructed, each with eight tiers of
shallow egg drawers, one above the 9th
er, stand around the four sides of the
room.
THE capacity of the hatching-draw-
ers, or multiplied trays, in these incuba-
tors, is equal to the accommodation Of
about eli ght thousand eggs at time, or,
say. for turning out one hundred and
forty thousand chickens per year.
There is another room devoted to
this same purpose, and MIR. Baker is
still further increasing his incubating
works, with the design of raising during
the coming year, grand total of two
hundred and fifty thousand chicks, for
which, as they mature, he has secured a
cash market for table consumption in
New York city"
Mr.. Bakers plan for Matching chick
ems is as follows:
The gas for heating the incubators
is manufactured upon the premises. Be
meath each machine is kept alight a sin
gle jet of gas to heat the water convey
ed through pipes to the narrow, open
chambers or vacuities Deer the surface
of the eggs as they rest in the trays
while being Matched. This process con
stantly gives the eggs the required ar
tificial heat, in form quite similar to the
action of the warmth that descends from
the natural hen-mother's body when she
is brooding over her eggs. The eggs are
turned regularly once in a day by the at
tendants The heat conveyed to the in
terror of the incubators, as we have de-
scribed, is controlled automatically An
electric battery in the adjoining room
communicates with the hot water cham
bers over the eggs, and also with the
gas jets; and when the temperature be-
comes too hot or too cold for the heal
thy and rightful progress OF the hatch
ing, the undue variation of heat is in
stantly announced through Indicators
governed by the electric current and ap-
paratus contrived for this special pur-
pose. The atmosphere in the incubat.
ing apartment is kept moist and humid
like the warm spring air-by placing
open, shallow pans of water around, up
on which the heated air acts advantage
eously, cooperating it evenly and admi-
rably The young birds remain in the
trays where they first see daylight after
breaking their shells, for two or three
hours, when they become dry and live
ly, and are transferred to what Mr.. Ba-
ker calls his brooding house.
This glass house is thirty feet in
width and one hundred and fifty-five in
length. 1t is divided off into fifty sepa-
rate compartments, twenty-five on eth
err side), in each of which are kept and
brooded, artifcially, one hundred
chicks from the second day of Their
birth to two or three weeks old, the ac-
commodations within this large conser-
vatory being ample for five thousand
chicks at time, of all ages, from the
size of half grown robin to that of a
pigeon or partridge, until they become
| good -sized broilers; and then, at from
one and half to two and half pounds
each, they are dressed and sent to the
hotels and restaurants in New York at
forty to fifty cents per pound.
In this house the chickens are
brooded when quite young by patent
mother to each pen. At two or
three weeks old transfers are made from
this house to another and larger range
of buildings, similarly glazed and ventil-
ated in which are also confined, in nu-
merous separate apartments, the laying
hens and pullets kept on the premises.
This latter range of buildings is glazed
on one side only, is four hundred and
sixty feet long, divided into seventy-fve
compartments, and each pen has three
rooms or divisions in it. The pens run
through from front to rear and are six
feet wide, each, by twenty feet long
from east to west. The fowls are fed
from the rear of the pens. This i'm
mense laying house is heated by steam
or hot water pipes again, and the apart
ment is kept at continuous summer heat
Gin the colder season. by this means,
whereby Mr.. Baker has found, with
stimulating food and constant care that
his fowls lay well in the winter time as
well as in the warm months of the year.
In each pen there are kept from twenty
to twenty five hens and pullets, or about
two thousand laying fowls in all; and
these are of all sorts and kinds-well
bred, full-bred, cross-bred, ETC., suited
to Mr.. Bakers purpose-tOwit, laying
of Eggs only,e
examining or forcing house, one hundred
and twenty feet long by twenty-five feet
wide, which is quite novel in this coun-
try. There are erected within it eight
round, upright wooden feeding ma
chimes, each having five tiers of small