The poultry industry has made the greatest change of any of the foods
  produced on the farm.
     Until the 1950's few farms were without chickens. Turkeys and ducks
  were grown, if not for marketing, for family use.
     During the Depression, many families survived on their own produce -
  fowl, eggs, milk, butter, cottage cheese, pork and, if lucky, beef. How
  many times would the family have been without "Capper's Weekly" and
  "Farm Journal" if they couldn't have picked up an old hen or a few dozen
  eggs to exchange for a year's subscription.
     Methods were so different, "back there". Baby chicks were hatched under
  the broody hen or in an incubator. Then mail order chicks were made
  available. Postal clerks will recall the early spring deliveries by mail,
  of the fuzzy balls, peeping until they drowned out conversation. The
  customer, hopefully was aware of shipping and arrival. Then the county 
  had our own hatcheries. Mary Grifith at Kiowa and Royce Gerstner at
  Medicine Lodge.
     Kerosene brooders, were used to keep the tiny chicks warm. They were
  fed and allowed to run free on the farm or in large pens. The young
  roosters were dressed as needed for family use. Few were sold outside the
  home. Pullets were kept for laying hens. Eggs were marketed by the dozen
  or in 30 dozen crates. Some few farmers with choice breeds kept roosters
  and sold the fertile eggs to the hatcheries in the spring.
     Little refrigeration was available, ice boxes were a luxury for years.
  Turkeys were raised by ladies in the county for their own special project
  for a bit of cash for the holiday buying. Often it went to help pay the
  December taxes.
     Ducks and geese were grown for family feasts and for feathers. Feather
  pillows and featherbeds were a "must" for many a young farm bride.
     With the coming to the farm of REA, came electricity for refrigeration
  and Oh Glory! when the deep freeze came along, many things changed in 
  food preservation.
     One can drive throught the country and seldom see a chicken in a farm
  yard. Most farmers buy their fryers, cut up, at the supermarket along
  with eggs, and neither the fryer nor the hen's feet ever touch the ground,
  much less run free. Feeding methods have changed, it is no longer profitable
  or feasable to produce your own. We do have some Egg Farms in the county.
  Eggs are picked up from a trough. How will this generation ever believe us
  when we tell of reaching into a hen's nest and feel the slimy old bull
  snake eating his fill of tomorrow's breakfast?
     I'm made to wonder how many of our young homemakers have ever dressed a
  fryer, let alone hatched, fed, killed one. Or how many, like our mothers
  could wring a head off a chicken after she had hooked it, dressed it and
  cooked it for some unexpected guest who had arrived at mealtime? We are
  glad for progress, but which did come first? The chicken or the egg?
                  
     Source:Chosen Land - Barber County, Kansas,  pg. 12
     Submitted by: Mary Gaunt