Compared to the caged layers in today’s “factory farms,” most chickens of yesteryear lived in idyllic conditions. On our farm, which was, I suppose, rather typical, preparation for chicks began in late winter with the thorough cleaning of brooder houses. Small, round, coal burning stoves were set up, each with a broad sheet metal skirt called a “hoover” extending outward around the upper part of the stove. This provided a warm and sheltered refuge that mimicked the protection of a mother hen’s wings.
Peanut hulls were spread a few inches thick on the floor around the stove and covered with newspaper on which the disinfected chick feeders and waterers were placed.
On a specific day in March, Pop would drive to the George M. Anthony Hatchery in Strausstown where the chicks that he had ordered were by then hatched, sexed (males discarded) and boxed, 100 to a box. He would get perhaps 10 boxes with two boxes of chicks put around each stove.
From their first day, chicks were fed finely ground cracked corn soaked in buttermilk, chick grit and “starter” mash. After about six weeks, they went outside for the summer, and by September they had started to lay eggs and were then housed for a year or sometimes two before they were sold for meat.
Pop had set up a small coal stove in the cave, our name for the root cellar. In that dark, warm climate, racks held burlap bags of oats in various stages of germination until, after about a week, the sprouts were several inches long. Twice a day he would mix a bag of sprouted oats with the layers’ mash (a dry feed formula) along with buttermilk. The chickens also had constant access to containers of ground oyster shells for calcium needed to produce egg shells and granite grit. Having no teeth, chickens, and most other birds, hold small pebbles in their crops, a sort of muscular pre-stomach, where their food is ground by the action of the stones.
The object of all this was, of course, eggs. With modern breeding and feeding, the chickens usually laid an egg a day. A hen’s oviduct holds, at any time, several eggs in various stages of development, a sort of assembly line. Sometimes an exceptionally large egg would be laid that had a double yolk. Sometimes, too, the opposite was found, an exceptionally small egg with no yolk at all. In the old days this was called an “umglicks oy,” an unlucky egg. Superstition held that you should never bring an unlucky egg into the house. Sometimes an egg that had no shell at all was found in the nest, just the membrane holding the contents together.
Even if there was a whole bank of nests available, hens tended to crowd into just a few, sometimes three or four into a nest at the same time with the predictable result of many broken eggs. A common practice, which we employed, was to place one porcelain or white glass egg in each nest to make all the nests seem equally attractive and encourage hens to use the otherwise unoccupied ones.
Back when farmers did their own butchering and made their own soap, eggs had additional uses. To make a pickling brine for smoking meats, enough salt had to be dissolved in water to float an egg. “Es muss en oy drawe” (It must float an egg), they used to say. Likewise, lye made from leaching water through wood ashes had to float an egg before it was ready to make soap.
Although not related to chickens, the following poultry anecdote is too good to pass up, and I mention it here as an interesting tidbit. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, all roads, by law, had to be lined with fences, since droving was a common way of transporting livestock. The following observation is from the writing of Julius F. Sachse and illustrates chickens’ and other fowls’ powerful roosting instinct. It describes a sight he witnessed along the Lancaster Pike.
Sachse wrote, “One of the curious sights common in the fall of the year were flocks or armies of fowls, generally turkeys but now and then geese, being driven toward the city. They were divided into lots of 50-75 with a ‘shooer’ in charge of each lot. He had a long pole with a piece of red flannel fastened to the end. The best time on the road was not much over a mile an hour. As soon as it commenced to get dark the fun began. The birds were determined to go to roost and notwithstanding all the efforts of the drovers they generally did. The stampede usually took place in passing an orchard or grove of trees. In much less time that it takes to tell it the trees were black with birds and the day’s journey was ended for the turkeys. Not so for the drovers who had to watch the birds all night to prevent theft.”
Informant Alan Keyser adds the following note: “Bob Bucher was the only drover I spoke with who had experience droving turkeys. He said to get them to move forward, one of the crew went ahead and dropped kernels of shelled corn on the road. This brought the lead turkey following the corn and, being flock animals, the rest followed not knowing that their leader was eating better than the rest. They were still doing this into the 1920s, and by then there was an occasional automobile on the road. Separating the turkeys to allow the car to pass was enough of a problem, but getting them back and moving in the right direction again was another problem. At night they kept watch with a shot gun to keep would be turkey thieves at bay.”
The Historian is produced by the New Hanover Historical Society. Call Robert Wood at 610-326-4165 with comments.
