Los Angeles herald., 1908-09-21
CHICK SHIPPERS
DO HUGE TRADE
LOS ANGELES NOW LEADING
THE ENTIRE WORLD
MAIL ORDER TRADE GROWS BY
LEAPS AND BOUNDS
Capacity of Newly Hatched Youngster
to Live Without Food Has Given
Rise to Profitable
Industry

An interesting industry, in which
Los Angeles now leads the world, is
the mail order business in baby chicks.
In the last four years this phase or
poultry culture has assumed proper
lions that show the astonishing growth
of that business in Los Angeles terri
tory. A hatch OF $4,000 to $4,000 eggs
at one time is something the eastern
chicken crank refuses to believe in
until he comes to the Pacific coast and
sees it accomplished.
Nature has provided the baby chick,
when just out of the shell, with a yolk
sack which gives it sustaining food
for from thirty-six to seVenty-tWo
hours. Any experienced chicken raiser
knows that his chicks just from the
incubator must not be fed anything.
A man with reasoning turn of mind
figured out several years ago that this
period when feed is unnecessary might
be good time for the chicken to
travel, and he tried successfully the
experiment of shipping hatch a short
distance. From that experiment has
grown the day-old chick industry,
which has a recognized place in the
poultry business.
Many persons have i'll luck with their
incubators or are so situated that they
are unable to give them proper atten-
ton. Others want chickens to raise
for meat or eggs, but do not care to
take the trouble to fuss with the hatch
ing side of the business. "Broiler
men, as they are called-men who
make speciality of the quick fatten-
ing of chicks to sell to cafes and ho-
tels-are glad to buy little chicks in
order to devote their entire time to the
fattening process. All these make a
quite respectable patronage to whom
the day-old chick dealer comes with
20 6n1f IerI. l1n
expressman, a box of fluffy little fell
lows all Matched out and ready to be
raised. He puts in one or two over the
number ordered, so that he may guar
antee delivery of all that are paid for
Climatic Conditions Good
The idea of shipping baby chicks
originated with an Indiana man, but
climatic conditions have enabled Cal
ifornia to take an easy lead. Chicks
have been shipped safely to points as
far from Los Angeles as Kansas City,
and the trade has regular customers
in California up beyond San Francisco
and all over Arizona and Nevada. One
hatchery has large weekly orders for
shipments to Goldfeld, which it fills
the year round. The head of the firm
says he does not see how the Goldheld
people eat SO many chicksens, but evil
IDENTIFY they do, for his go there regu-
larly week after week.
The first retail store in the world
for the purpose of handling baby
chicks through mail orders or store
sales was opened in Los Angeles four
years ago. At that time the proprie-
tors thought their annual output of
10000 chicks was a big thing-and 1t
was then. Now they have a capacity
of $4,000 chicks every twenty-one days,
and are planning to enlarge. Another
hatchery at Gardena has an annual
capacity of 100000 chicks. A common
sign on the windows of stores in the
district where poultry supply stores are
clustered is something like "2100 chicks
today"
The business is not confined to
chicks, of which all leading varieties
are catalogued by the hatcheries just
as specialties are listed by the general
mail order stores. Turkeys, ducks,
geese and guinea fowl are turned out
to order. The hatchery men complain
that they cannot get enough Picking
duck eggs to hatch out ducklings to
meet the demand. One man is holding
In reserve an order from a single GUS
toner for 1000 ducks a month until he
can make contracts for enough eggs
to hatch them.
Eggs to supply the hatcheries come
from many different sources, and par
ticularly from the large egg ranches,
but also from many poultry raisers
who have a few fowls which produce
a surplus over the number of eggs for
the family table. The average price
paid is 10 cents dozen over the whole
sale market price.