The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-02-18
EGGS BY THE WHOLESALE
CALIFORNIA TOWN GIVEN OVER TO
THEIR PRODUCTION.
Hens, 100000 OF Them, Make the Egg
business Lively i'm the Little
Town of Petaluma.

San Francisco Call.
The town of Petaluma is ruled by five
hundred thousand hens. They rule as long
as they produce eggs. When they are past
that stage Of usefulness they are put out
Of the way somehow, perhaps sent TO San
Francisco boarding houses. and a younger
generation of rulers take their places.
But for these half a million OF hens the
town would never have been what it now
is, and the egg and poultry raising indus
try of Petaluma would never have Matched,
so to speak, and reached its present inn
mense proportions. 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't stay and go in
the poultry business in this favorable spot,
which many finally do. Twenty-three years
ago there were not more than a 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 a back
yard to a hundred acres or more. No per-
sui IdNL4lS a scrap OL ldllu " SpdAC - WIZ
out a nock of hens.
The few figures following make the egg
business appear a very much more digni-
fed occupation than it is popularity sup
posed TO be.
The shipments from Petaluma last year
were 100000 dozto eggs, 10000 dozen of
poultry. AS high as 14,00O dozen eggs have
been shipped out in one day from the Peta-
luna market alone. More than one-half of
the eggs and poultry used in San Francisco
yearly come from this town of breeders
and lncuDatorS. For the mOtherly hen does
not belong here, and 1t is as much as her
life is worth to show any inclination to set.
Petaluma's proud position as the egg cen
ter of the Pacific coast is not the result of
accident, but is due TO a combination, viz,
right soil, cool summer and favorab BILE To-
cation. NearnesS to the San Francisco mar
ket and the extremely low freight rates
afforded by reason of the competition be-
tween water and rail transportation are
other important factors in it's development.
FEEDING THE HENS.
The poultry industry has been the means
of making much otherwise worthless land
much more valuable The big Cotati rancho
Of ten thousand acres has recently been
subdivided and sold out in small holdings.
To drive through 1t now is to find a veri-
table poultry city.
The white leghorn fowls. among the best
layers known, are kept to nearly the en-
tire exclusion of other breeds, for the egg
business is really more promising here
than the poultry side of the industry.
1t is "a pretty sight at The feeding time of
5000 or 1000 hens on a many-acred ranch.
Perhaps the chicken houses, each with it's
nearby colony of 100 or $50 chickens. are
scattered over many acres, sometimes
amidst the green OF a foothill orchard.
There is a rush and flutter of a 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 feed and gathering the harvest
of eggs as he goes. The length of this trip
occupied, but the feeding sled sometimes
makes a circuit of a mile.
The hens are generally fed 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 u
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 a big ranch it takes from
6 a. m. until IL o'clock to complete the
quantity is put out to last t~wenty-four
hours. Seventy-fve hens are roasted in
each house, and the houses are built on
runners.
The colonies are from 400 to 800 feet apart
and the hens being well supplied with feed
are content and do not wander from one
colony to another.
EVERY FOWL KNOWS ITS NEST.
Ar interesting feature of this open colony
system is that each fowl knows and goes
to, unerringly, it's own particular colony
house for r~oosting at night.
No man is considered a professional poul-
try raiser about Petaluma unless he keeps
at least a thousand hens. Another way OF
keeping the fowls is in a continuous row OF
houses with wire-inclosed run-yards at
tached; but the scattered colony system
seems to be the favorite, and is also the
more healthful and gives the best results
in fertility and vigor.
Many of the women of Petaluma are kept
busy feeding the chickens. In 1900 5000
was spent with the merchants of the town
for chicken feed. This was outside and
above the feedstuf which some of the large
poultry raisers import from San Francisco
Small oyster shells are ought in this town
of hens by the schooner load 70 furnish the
biddies with the lime wherewith to produce
a proper eggshell. The cost of feeding one
hen well, and strike the happy medium OF
success in feeding, is about 60 cents pei
store in Petalama and buy $500 worth OF
chicken feed and pay cash for it as readily
and perhaps more so than he would buy his
wife a silk gown.
Spot cash is the basis on which trading is
done in Petaluma, and the hens have made
it so. The local merchants pay out to small
producers an average OF $1,000 per day
for eggs and poultry.
Producers get cash almost daily for their
products and can sell one bird or a dozer
eggs TO a lively lot of competitors for cash
at the same rate that a thousand birds OF
a thousand dozen eggs would be bought
for.
HOW BUSINESS IS TRANSACTED.
The Petaluma poultryman sells his eggs
he doesn't consign them. In the spring sea.
son San Francisco and other dealers senC
TO the town, and their agents may be otter
found out on the country roads trying tc
induce the incoming poultrymen to sigr
contracts to sell their products to them fol
the entire year. Many small producers shjI
eggs and poultry direct 10 San Francisco
hotels and restaurants. Twenty to thirty
coops Of poultry are shipped each day from
Petaluma to the San Francisco market
Poultry and eggs 10 the value of 81 500 are
the daily shipments from the town at pres.
ent. which figure is raised to $500 from
April to July.
Wells-Fargo shipped through their office
last year from Petaluma 1000 cases OF
eggs and 6.00 boxes OF butter, and the
Petaluma Express Company is handling
more than 100 cases per day.
The best argument as 10 profits is the
fact that everybody in the town is in the
poultry business IL some form, and they al
stay in il and enlarge each year. The aver.
age profit per hen is 81 to $50 net per an.
mum. One man about three miles from
Petaluma has succeeded. by special care
neatness and good selection OF fowls III