Eggs: Pro & Amateur

Never has the U.S. hen performed so valiantly--the Department of Agriculture announced last week that she is laying one-fourth of an egg more a month, and that she produced a billion more eggs last month than in March 1942. But it is not enough; she must not only lay but hatch more. She has already begun. 1943 hatchings are up 16% over last year.

While thousands on thousands of soft-handed, pale-necked civilians are beginning to learn the facts of animal and vegetable life, the great burden will still be borne by the professional farmers and poultrymen.

Poultry professionals are busy. Now

U.S. egg men do not wait to count their chickens before they are hatched; they count them before the eggs have even been laid. Last week one of the country's largest hatcheries would not promise delivery on any new orders for chickens before Aug. 1.

The Pro. Probably the biggest privately owned egg and poultry business in the U.S. is run by tall, large-boned, greying Hobart Creighton, 46, of Warsaw, Ind. Unable to raise hogs successfully, Eggman Creighton started with chickens 18 years ago. He owned 38 acres of land and some equipment. His brother Russell, 40, had $1,500 cash. They bought 1,200 hens. Today they have 60,000 pullets and hens, occupy 1,400 acres, employ 55 people, are capitalized at $250,000, produce 30,000 eggs a day, ten million eggs a year, get premium prices. Last year they grossed $388,000.

Eggman Creighton believes in scientific farming, free enterprise and White Leg horns. The latter, he says, are the most efficient egg-producing machines yet dis covered. He seeks to improve his best layers by keeping strict records -- how many eggs laid, their weight, the physical characteristics of chicks hatched from them, etc. He is president of the U.S. Record of Performance Breeders Association, also chairman of the National Poul try Defense Committee. (Sideline: he is Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives.) For his pedigreed chicks Egg man Creighton gets 40-c- to $1.75 each; the common-or-garden variety brings 15-c- each.

Eggman Creighton is only one professional among 218,000. Last year they produced the astronomical total of 48 billion eggs. This year they must top that score by as many more millions of eggs as they can possibly wheedle out of the hard-worked U.S. hen.

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