Page 142 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

they can get for live pullets.

“Experience convinces me that cross-bred pullets make the best broilers.
Their hybrid vigor makes them gain faster than pure-bred chickens, and they
generally weigh 30 per cent more at twelve weeks than a purebred pullet. But
in growing pullets for broiler purposes, the most important thing is the feed.
Only a good feed can develop a broiler to the limit of its inherent capacity. A
chick of the heavier breeds will gain up to thirty times its weight in a period
of a few weeks if given a carefully selected prepared feed.”

While Mrs. Moffet now has a chicken house forty feet long and eighteen feet
wide, she started in a very small way; investing only $60 altogether. The
present house cost $190 and her investment in equipment amounted to $160.
This total of $350 was part of her profits. She pays four cents for one-day old
chicks in 500 quantities. Five hundred chicks, when twelve weeks old, cost a
total of $120. “When dressed, packaged in pasteboard containers, and
wrapped in waxed paper, they bring Mrs. Moffet a profit of about $50. The
cost of packaging of the pullets runs almost four cents each. Chickens for
broiler purposes are not difficult to raise. As many as 200 may be developed
in a comparatively small space, with a small broiler plant. A ready market is
furnished in every fair-sized city, especially during the spring. Prices for
broilers vary with the season. Only chicks from disease-free stock should be
used for broilers. Sickly chickens do not have the necessary stamina, and the
high percentage of loss through death wipes out the profits.