, 1902-03-27
HALF A MILLION HENS
THE INDUSTRY OF A CALIFORNIA
TOWN.
Hatehinss of $4,000 Chicks and 5000
Paid for Feed.

The town of Tetaluma is ruled by
100000 hens. But for these half mil
lion of hens the town would never have
been what it now is. and the egg and
poultry raising industry of Petaluma
woul never have Matched, so to speak,
and reached its present immense pro.
portions. The hens know IL. and hence
there is no spot in the place that Is Nor
hidden to them.
They greet the visitor as he steps
from the train and they cluck at HIM as
he d~eparts-that is. If he doesn't stay
and go into the poultry business in his
favorable spot. which many finally do.
Twenty-three years ago there We're not
more than a hundred or two chickens
to be found in or around Petaluma.
Now more eggs and poultry are ship
ped from that point than from all the
other towns of the state combined. and
the poultry ranches vary in size ron
a back yard to Il hundred acres OF
more No person having a scrap of
land to spare is without n lock of hens.
The few figures following make the
egg business appear n very much more
digniied occupation than it Is popu-
larry supposed to be:
The shipments from Petaluma last
year We're 100000 dozen eggs and 80,
900 dozen of poultry. As high as H..
900 dozen eggs have been shipped oui
in one day from the Petaluma market
alone.
The poultry industry has been the
means of making much otherwise
worthless land much more valuable
The big Cotati rancho of 10000 acres
has recently been sub-diyidcd and sold
out in small holdings. To drive through
it now is to find a 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, promis
Ing here than the poultry side of the
industry.
1t is n pretty sight at the feeding
time of COCO or 1000 hens on Il many.
acred ranch. Perhaps the chicken
houses. each with its nearby colony of
100 or $50 chickens, are scattered over
many acres. sometimes amid the green
of a foothill orchard.
There is II rush and n flutter of n liv-
ing 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 feed and gather
ing h harvest of eggs as he goes. The
length of this trip varies, of Course.
with the amount OF land occupied but
the feeding sled sometimes makes IL
circuit of Il mile.
The hens are fed generally only once
a day, with the addition of a lunch of
green feed at night. The sled Is loaded
with four barrels of water. five sacks
of wheat. and n 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 allowed to sour.
On n big ranch it takes from q a.. IN.
until IL o'clock to complete the feeding
and watering and II sufficient quantity
is put out to last twenty-hours. Sew
enty-five hens are roasted in each
house, and the houses are built on
runners.
An interesting feature of this open
colony system is that each fowl knows
and goes u%nerringly to its own par
ticular colony house for roosting at
night.
In 1900 $4,000 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 import from San Fran
cisco. Small oyster shells are bought
in this town Of hens by the schooner
load to furnish the biddies with the
lime wherewith to produce n proper
eggshell. The cost of feeding one hen
well, and strike the happy medium of
success in feeding. is about 10 cents
per year-from hat to 81. The average
profit per hen Is 81 to S1.JO net per an.
mum. One man about three miles from
Petaluma has succeeded by special
care, n%eatncss and good selection of
fowls. in making his hen pay II trife
over 81 each per annum.-From the
San Francisco Call.
A couple of years ago the Union Pa