POSTAL CUSTOMER
Volume V, Issue 3
PRSRT STD U.S. Postage Paid Permit #36 OMAHA, NE
March 2011
Hoover’s Hatchery: decades of experience in the poultry industry
by Emma Struve A building, which used to house Rudd’s creamery, is dwarfed by the elevator right next door. To enter the front office feels like going into any paneled family room in Iowa but it belies the beehive of activity in the rest of the rooms to the rear of the building. Nestled in the small north central Iowa town of Rudd is the privately owned and operated Hoover’s Hatchery, which has built business from flocks of chickens across Iowa in order to ship day-old chicks to poultry owners throughout the United States. Hoover’s Hatchery took its name from patriarch Robert Hoover in 1942. It has been in the same location since 1944. Present owner Mary Halsted started working at the hatchery while it produced and sold chicks and table eggs in the early 1970s under Mr. Hoover’s expert tutelage. “He was a very good teacher,” Halsted stated. She now operates the business with energy, a practical knowledge earned from half a lifetime in
the industry, and deftness that would make you think she never wanted to do anything else. Although, Halsted will tell you that as a child she hated collecting eggs from the hens that pecked at her hands and was not going to have anything to do with chickens when she grew up. Halsted started working at Hoover’s Hatchery when her family was young. She and her husband lived just outside of Rudd and were in financial need. “I cleaned and boxed eggs,” Halsted recalled. “Then I came to work in the office with orders.” That was when the demand for meat-type broiler chickens first started to take off and Hoover’s Hatchery was developing its dealer network. Halsted started purchasing shares in the business in 1978 when it was incorporated and Mr. Hoover semi-retired. In 2003, Halsted became the sole owner of the hatchery. She – along with a staff of 26 full- and part-time employees – receives eggs ready to hatch from breeding flocks, incubates them for 19 days, hatches them, packages them according to
Mary Halsted, owner of Hoover’s Hatchery in the north central Iowa town of Rudd, examines a crate of pullets hatched on a March Wednesday that are ready to ship. During peak chick season each year up to 50,000 birds hatch twice a week. Photo by Emma Struve customer orders and ships them via whichever way is most expedient. Halsted explained that during peak chick season, which is the middle of March through Continued on Page 4
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New leadership, policy actions result of ICA annual meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 15
The Farmer’s Wife . . . . . . . . . . .Page 5 Futures Market Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Page 13 Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Page 28-31