Old Chicken Hatchery Publication

A good friend gave me something the other day that he thought would interest me-and he was right.  It is an old mailout from a Chicken Hatchery that used to be in operation in Cameron, Texas. I say used to be in operation, because I can't find much of anything on the Internet about Hornung Hatchery.  There is only a hatchery named Ideal Hatchery in Cameron, Texas.  I've ordered chicks from there several times.  The website says they ship over 5 million chicks a year!  I wonder if Ideal bought out Hornung or not.

Here is the old faded, yellowed mailout that I'm talking about:  There is no date on it so I can't tell exactly when this was sent out,but I did find information out there that seemed to prove that Hornung was in operation in the 50's.

Hornung Hatchery

If you flip the paper over, you'll see an order form and various specials that they were running.  Many of the "specials" they were running are still used today by other hatcheries like Murray McMurray, Cackle, etc.  You'll also notice on the top left an Order Form.  This dated back to the days where you filled out the order form, cut it out and mailed it (snail mail).  There were no fax machines or company websites to place your order.  Life was a little more slow-paced back then!

Fill out your order and mail it in

One thing I've discovered about Hornung on the Internet is that they were beloved by their customers for a beautiful calendar that they would send out.  Here's what one poster to a popular poultry website said about Hornug:  "Years ago I used a hatchery out of Cameron, TX where Ideal is located called Hornung Brothers. They have long since gone so I use Ideal and they have always done me right. One thing I used to love about the old Hornung Brothers was every year the would send us this big beautiful calendar with chickens featured every month. They were so awesome."

 Here is the order form and reminder for getting the FREE beautiful calendar of all the breeds that the poster was talking about.  I would have liked to receive one of those:

I thought for grins it would be interesting to see the difference in prices between then and now to see how the chick prices have risen and the purchasing power of our dollar has dropped.  The Barred Rock breed is a heavy brown egg layer that I use. Check this out:

Barred Rock

Back when this publication was put together, 50 straight run Barred Rocks would have cost me $9.00 from Hornung Brothers.

Today those same 50 birds would cost me $116 from Murray McMurray.  Wow!!

Let's look at the broilers.  These are the Meat birds that I purchase.  The ad below shows 100 chicks for only $5.00.  Today, those same 100 birds would cost me $201!!!

Place your orders everyone!

I wish I could jump in a 'way-back' machine and go back in time and take advantage of some of these bargains!