(My grandmother would never think of living on a chicken farm, it had to be a chicken ranch. It was just like she lived on Magnolia Heights, not Magnolia Avenue.)
There are a number of activities associated with life on a chicken ranch. Daily activities included feeding the chickens, gathering eggs (twice a day), cleaning and sorting eggs, and routine repairs and maintenance. Weekly chores included cleaning out the chicken manure under the roosts where the chickens slept (every Saturday) and scrubbing out the watering troughs.
Infrequent activities included replacing nest linings with wood shavings or rice hulls, driving the 1935 GMC flatbed with sideboards to the local lumber yard to pick up a load of shavings. (Today, about every five years, I request competitive quotations for auto insurance on the web. None of the insurance sites will allow an age of first license less than sixteen. In fact, I got my first license when I was fourteen. That allowed me to drive to town to pick up shavings as well as chickenfeed.) Occasionally there was a load of oyster shells to be dumped in the chicken yards. I do not recall the source of the oyster shells.
Chicken are not productive layers for more than about two or three years. So periodically the flock was culled and marginally productive hens were shipped off to slaughter. This required the regular replacement by raising chickens from day-old chicks. One of the steps in raising laying hens is vaccination. I do not recall what diseases the vaccinations were addressing, but there were two.
As I recall noting in an earlier posting, my grandfather was from Denmark. Therefore we did not vaccinate the chickens, we “waxinatted” them. My father, my brother, and I set some sort of record, vaccinating more than twice the number of chickens in one day than did a professional veterinarian crew of five.
As a sideline activity to egg production my brother and I raised five thousand broilers from day-old chicks. When they were ready for market we butchered them and sold them from the ranch for twenty-nine cents a pound. That was during WWII so at today’s dollar that was equivalent to about twenty-nine dollars a pound. We did not require ration stamps. I still know how to dismember a bird in short order.
1 comment:
The chicken ranch life story was very good. I, too, had a "Junior" license at 14 issued by the DMV. I grew up in Borrego Springs. I could drive a 25 mile radius from our home. The nearest sheriff was in Ramona, at least 1 1/2 -2 hours away. The nearest CHP was in Julian, at least an hour away. Suffice to say, we pretty much did what we wanted to do and survived rather well. I don't think my sons or grandchildren would believe what we did. I even carried a 410 shotgun to school so I could dove hunt walking back home in the afternoon. Try that today.
Eric
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