The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1900-12-04

MUCH FUSS AND FEATHERS
Fifty Thousand Chickens Are to
Meet Untimely Death.
NICHOLSON BROS. ARE VERY BUSY
Their Plant Now Plant Now Packing Fifteen
Hundred Head of Poultry Daily. How it
is Done. Score of Pickers at Work

Hundred Head of Poultry Daily. How it
is Done. Score of Pickers at Work.
The poultry picking industry as CON
Quoted this year by Nicholson Brothers
is, for the time being, the largest single
industry in the county. A visit to
their plant on Broadway shows thou
sands upon thousands of chickens a.
waiting their doom. Cage after cage
filled with young roosters of every col
or, size, and breed. Already this con-
cern has picked at least 10000 head.
they have 10000 head on hand in Den
ison, and thousands more being held
for shipment at different points in the
vicinity. The prevailing price is four
cents pound, and Mr.. Nicholson tells
us that whereas some years ago the
average weight of the poultry bought
here was three pounds, the average
weight now is five pounds. showing
what our farmers have gained by care
full chicken raising. A perfect chorus
OF crows, and clucks, and scratchings
greets the visitor. The chickens are
we'll housed with comfortable straw
bedding, large water troughs. and are
fed bushels OF corn; altogether they ap-
pear happy and regardless of fate, al
though an insurance company would
not give much for their life expectancy.
The day before the chickens are
slaughtered they are not fed but are
placed in separate departments from
the other chickens, the run way is made
into the catching room where each of
the more than a score of chicken
pickers dives in and grabs his victim.
The method of slaughter is as humane
as possible, and without any of the
torturing torments of trying to get a
chickens head between block and an
axe. In the rear of the establishment
is the long picking room, at which
twenty-five men are busy from morning
until night. The price paid for pick
ing, as it is called. is two cents per
head, and as some of the experts can
pick more than l20 head day they re-
ceive good wages
The room is an almost indescribable
one of carnage and feathers. The boys
wear long aprons, old motherhubbards,
and anything that may protect them
from the blood and feathers. 1t is re-
markable to see how quickly some of
the men will capture their chicken, tie
him up BY the feet, perform the act of
execution. strip the feathers and pre-
pare it for the packers; from the pick
ing room the chickens are taken by the
cart-load to the packing room where,
after being allowed to cool, they are
packed in neat cases. The capacity of
the plant now is about 1900 chickens a
day There are enough chickens in
sight to keep the plant busy until the
first of January. This is the biggest
poultry business ever done in Denison,
and in fact there are few places in the
state where it is carried on in such a
wholesale manner. The fact that it
gives employment to nearly thirty men
at good wages, besides Offering to the
farmers sure market for this by-pro-
duct OF the farm is certainly a good
thing for Denison. We congratulate
Nicholson Brothers upon their enter
prise and the successful management
by which they have secured this large
business. A few more such business
houses in Denison and there will be no
question as to the prosperity of our city
for all time