The Democratic advocate., 1902-03-15
Half a Million Hens.
From the Sam Franc isco can.

From the San Franc isco Call.
The town of Petaluma is ruled by 500, !
900 hens. But for these half million OF
hens the town would never have been what
it now is, and the egg and poultry raising
industry of Petaluma would never have
hatched, 50 to speak, and reached its pres
ent immense preparations. The hens
know it, and hence there is no spot in the
place that is forbidden to them.
They greet the visitor as he steps from
the train and they cluck at him as he de-
parts-that is, if he doesn' stay and go
into the poultry business in this favorable
spot, which many do. Twenty-three years
ago there were not more than hundred
or two chickens to be found in or around
Petaluma. Now more eggs and poultry
are shipped from that point than from all
the other towns Of the State combined,
and the poultry ranches vary in size from
back yard to hundred acres or more.
No person having scrap of land to spare
is without flock cf hens
The few figures following make the egg
business appear very much more dignified
occupation than it is popularity supposed to
be-
The shipments from Petaluma last year
were $500, 00G dozen eggs and 10000
dozen of poultry. As high as IA, 600 doz-
en- eggs have been shipped out in one day
from the Petaluma market alone.
Petaluma's proud position as the egg
centre of the Pacific Coast is not the re-
suit of accident but is due to combina-
ton, viz. right soil, cool summers and
favorable location. Nearness to the San
Francisco market and the extremely low
freight rates afforded by reason of the COM
petition between water and rail transpor-
tation are ether important factors 1t It's
development.
The poultry industry has been the
means of making much otherwise worth
less land much more valuable. The big
Cotati rancho Of 10, 900 acres has recently
been subdivided and sold out in small hold
ings. To drive through it now is to find
veritable poultry city.
The White Leghorn fowls, among the
best layers known, are kept to nearly the
entire exclusion of other breeds, for the
egg business is really more promising here
than the poultry side of the industry.
1t is pretty sight at the feeding time
of 6, 900 or 900 hens on many -acred
ranch Perhaps the chicken houses, each
with its nearby colony of 100 or 100
chickens, are scattered over many acres,
sometimes amid the green OF foothlll
orchard.
There is rush and futter of living
cloud of white as the man starts out from
the feed house with horse and sled and
makes the round of the tiers of houses,
scattering the feed and gathering the har-
vest of eggs as he goes The length OF
this trip varies, of course, with the amount
of land occupied but the feeding sled some
times makes circuit of a mile.
The hens are fed generally only once
day, with the addition of lunch of green
feed at night. The sled is loaded with
four barrels of water, five sacks OF wheat
and mash composed of three sacks OF
coarse middlings and forty pounds OF either
cut green bone or ground fresh meat, which
is mixed with skim milk that has been al
lowed to sour. On big ranch it takes
from 6 a. m. until II O clock to complete
the feeding and watering and sufficient
quantity is put out to last twenty-four
hours. Seventy-fve hens are roasted In
each house, and the houses are built on
runners.
The colonies are from 400 to 500 feet
apart, and the hens being well supplied
with feed are content and do not wander
from one colony to another.
An interesting feature of this open col
ony system is that each fowl knows and
goes unerringly to its own.particular colony
house for roosting at night.
In 1900 $40, 900 was spent with the
merchants of the town for chicken feed.
This was outside and above the feed stuff
which some of the large poultry raisers i'm
port from San Francisco. Small oyster
shells are brought in this town of hens by
the schooner load to furnish the biddies
with the lime wherewith to produce
proper eggshell. The cost Of feeding one
hen well, and strike the happy medium OF
success in feeding, is about So cents per
year-from that to 81 A man will go
into store in Petaluma and buy $500
worth of chichen feed and pay cash for it
as readily, and perhaps more SO, than he
would buy his wife silk gown.
The best argument as to profits is the
fact that everybody in the town is in the
poultry business in some form, and they all
stay in it and enlarge each year. The
average profit per hen is 81 to S1.5O net
per annum. One man about three miles
from Petaluma has succeeded by special
care, neatness and good selection of fowls,
in making his hens pay trife over 81
each per annum. If the eggshells were
only as valuable as the eggs, what du-
plicate store of riches would accrue to
many. The incubators leave behind them
vast number of shells, which are carted
away by the wagon load for use in the tan
neries, or are crushed and fed to their near
relatives, the chicks. Perhaps the biggest
wagon load on record was made by the
shells left by 45, 600 chicks hatched by
incubator. Incased in wire netting, they
resembled case of huge popcorn.