Before I get into the hatchery business, I want to digress a bit and explain how so many Borculo families, including the DeGroot family, were related. From the Borculo cemetery records, I learned that Paul DeGroot, Henry Koop, the owner of Koop’s Grocery, and Louis Vollink, the part owner of Vollink’s Store had all married sisters. So in a 200 yard radius, three of the Borculo business owners were brothers-in-law, and two of them were in direct competition!
Lena DeGroot, Paul’s wife, died in 1923 at the age of 41. Paul and Lena had two daughters, Elizabeth and Susan. Sometime later Paul remarried. His new wife was Annie Walters, whose husband Henry had died in 1916 at the age of 31. Annie and Henry had three children, Dick, Peter, and Henrietta. The children became step brothers and sisters after the marriage.
As time moved on Dick Walters went to Calvin College and Seminary and became a Christian Reformed minister. He also married his step sister Susan DeGroot. Dick became a Bible teacher and professor at Reformed Bible College, now known as Kuyper College. He later became its president, a position he held until he died.
Paul DeGroot died in 1929 at the age of 55. It appears that Peter Walters took over the operation of the Reliable Poultry Farm for his mother at this time. Annie DeGroot was again a widow for many years.
Peter Walters and his wife Kay later purchased the property from his mother and Peter’s two sisters.
Annie DeGroot and her daughter Henrietta, by then married to Reynold Koop, began the hot lunch program at the Borculo Public School in 1941. The meals cost each student $.05 a day at this time.
For a number of years the hatchery business had been growing in the Zeeland area. The annual Zeeland Chick and Egg Show was one of the biggest for the poultry industry in the United States. At the end of World War II, the city of Zeeland had 21 hatcheries with an additional 20 hatcheries in the surrounding areas. There was an incubator capacity of over 3,000,000. They were producing 11,000,000 day old chicks annually, about ½ of all the baby chicks sold in Michigan.
The largest hatchery in Zeeland was called the Zeeland Hatchery. It hatched over 2 million eggs a year, including turkeys and ducks.
It took over 25 million eggs for a hatching season which ran from January to July. Farmers from the area would bring their eggs to the hatchery and sold them at a premium price as hatching eggs. They were required to keep one rooster in the flock per 25 hens for breeding purposes.
At this time most hatcheries were using cabinet incubators which allowed a large number of eggs to hatch on trays at a time.
It takes 21 days for an egg to hatch when it is kept at a constant 99 degrees temperature and rotated mechanically every 3 to 4 hours. The chicks were sexed when they were one day old. The female leghorn chickens were kept as future laying hens. The roosters were disposed of as their breed had no value for meat. The local hatchery would also vaccinate the farmer’s hens to prevent poultry diseases.
Many farmers in Borculo kept small flocks of about 200 chickens, and sold their surplus eggs to the local grocery who would pick them up on his weekly stop at the farm in his peddle wagon.
Today most of the eggs in the area are produced at the Sunrise Poultry Farm near Hudsonville. The Patmos family started out with a flock of 100 hens in 1944. Today they have over 2 million laying hens on their farm. They package and ship out 1.6 million eggs each day. The general farmers of Borculo have been replaced by modern agribusiness.
Today there is only one chick hatchery left in the Zeeland area from the days when there were forty. The Townline Poultry Farm is located 3 miles South of Borculo at 4198 96th Ave. near Quincy Street. It was founded by Jacob and Ada Geerlings in 1913. It has been operated for 103 years by 4 generations of family members.