The Ill-omened Broiler Business.

The broiler business stands to-day as the ill-omened valley in the poultry landscape.  As a rule broiler production has not and probably will not pay.  I know of a few exceptions—­about enough to prove the rule.

Most poultry writers, when they make the statement that broilers do not pay, insert the phrase “As an exclusive business” after the word broilers.  This is merely a ruse to take the rough edge off an unpleasant statement, for it certainly hurts the poultry editor to admit that a much exploited branch of the industry is a failure.  Nevertheless it is a failure and the more frankly we admit the fact, the less good capital and good brains will be wasted in the attempt to produce at a profit something which is, and probably always will be, produced at a loss.

The reason the broiler is produced at a loss is that 95 per cent. of the broilers produced are a by-product of egg, fancy and general poultry production, and as such their selling price is not determined by the cost of production, or the supply determined by the demand.  That the broiler business received the boom that it did, is due to plain ignorance of the cost of production, or to the appreciation that the ability to rear young chicks could find a more profitable outlet than in broiler production.  Let us take an analogous case.  Suppose a city man should discover the fact that there was a demand for dried casein from skim milk.  With pencil and paper he could easily figure profits in the business.  If this dreamer would attempt to keep cows for the production of casein and throw away his butter fat, we would have an analogous case to the broiler raiser who does not keep his pullets for egg production.

The young cockerel, like skim milk, is a by-product and may pay over the cost of feeding, or some other specific item, but that he does not pay the whole cost, including wages for the manager is proven by two facts:  First, every large broiler plant yet started has either failed flatly or shifted its main line to other things; second, egg farmers would be only too glad to buy pullets at the price for which they sell the cockerels—­a confession that it costs more to produce broilers than they will bring.

The conception of the broiler business when it was boomed twenty years ago was to produce broilers in early spring, when other folks had none.  It was, like the early watermelon, or the early strawberry business—­to make its profits in extreme prices.

This idea received several severe blows from the hands of modern progress.  One is the development of poultry fattening and crate feeding in this country.  This has resulted in supplying the consumer with choice chicken-flesh that can be produced more economically than broilers.  Formerly it was a case of eating old hen—­rooster, age unknown, or broilers—­now we have capon, roaster, crate-fattened chickens and green ducks, all rivals for the place formerly occupied exclusively by the broiler.