Chickens by Mail
by Jim McCarty

Somewhere in Missouri, a rural mail carrier picks up his load to be delivered to mailboxes along the state's back roads.  This time mingled with a varied lot of envelopes and other parcels is a small cardboard box with holes in the sides.

From inside comes the unmistakable peep of baby chickens. A shipping label tells the mail carrier that another flock of baby chicks has left Marti Poultry in Windsor.

For 60 years the Marti family has been providing baby chicks across the country.  "I bet there isn't a state we don't ship to," says Velma Marti, a tiny, polite-speaking woman whose enthusiasm for her work belies her many years on the job.

Velma and her late husband, Kenneth, started the hatchery in 1939 in a tiny building built on a vacant lot in town.  Kenneth had an unusual occupation - he was a chicken sexor.

He had a route that took him from Windsor north to the Iowa line.  Along the way he would stop at hatcheries and determine which chicks were hens and which were roosters, no easy task with hatchlings.

In 1939 Kenneth gave up his route and formed the Marti Poultry Farm.  The young couple started out selling just a couple of standard farmyard chicken breeds, mostly red and white leghorns.

Orders in those days were huge, Velma says.  It wasn't unusual for the Martis to fill orders for 300, 500, even 1,000 birds.  They would hatch as many as 40,000 chicks every week to keep up with the demand.

At this time Henry Country was the baby chick capital of the world.  Windsor was the second largest producer of baby chicks - nearby Clinton held the title.  There were seven hatcheries in Windsor alone as late as the 1950's  Most of the chicks were shipped by railroad then.  Windsor was the junction for the Katy and Rock Island railroads.  Kenneth Marti fought for years to keep the railroads running.

"When the took those trains off we were afraid it would ruin our business," Velma says.  "But the postal department assured us they'd take care of us - and they do."

Over the years the poultry business has seen dramatic changes, and the Martis changed with the times.  "It went from big orders to small orders.  We used to have orders for 300 chickens.  Now we cater to the family breeder."

While the orders got smaller, the kinds of chickens people wanted changed too.  Instead of common varieties like leghorns, chicken fanciers demanded more exotic breeds.

The Martis were one of the first hatcheries to offer araucanas, which lay colored eggs.  Velma credits a magazine article that mentioned them in passing with boosting their sales.  "As a footnote they listed three hatcheries in the U.S. where you could get these chickens.  We started selling coast to coast.

Along one wall giant incubators hatch eggs every 21 days.  Barely out of the shell, the chicks go into small cardboard boxes in lots of 24 so that they can keep each other warm.  That same day they will be loaded on a truck, destined for the Kansas City post office or the international airport for delivery.

If it seems likely the chicks won't make it, keep in mind Mother Nature takes care of her own.  "If you killed one and cut it open you could see the egg yoke inside.  It lasts for 72 hours.  That's nature's way of helping the bird.  It doesn't need any food or water for 72 hours."

That's plenty of time for the post office to deliver the priority mail containers.  But to better the odds the customer is told when to expect the birds.

Behind the shipping and packing room are dozens of chicken houses where adult birds keep the eggs coming.  Rooster crows pierce the air and the cackle of proud hens never ceases.  The breeding stock is sold off each August and replaced with the new flock.

"They lay better when they are young.  A young bird is healthier."

Most of the state's hatcheries have closed.  There are no more hatcheries in Clinton and Windsor can claim the title.  The orders still pour in during the spring months, challenging the workers to keep up.