Hot Chicks

The Tyreel Mammoth Hatchery business was at 269 Connells Point Road from 1921 onwards.  It expanded its premises until at its maximum extent it took in an area as far as present-day no 281 Connells Point Road.

The business was begun by William Cottrill at Rossi Street in 1919, using an incubator that could hatch 2,400 eggs at once.[1] “Eggs in at one end, chicks out at the other end.  Seems funny.”  By 1920 it could deal with 5,000 eggs at a time.  The market for backyard poultry runs was growing.  Along with Albert Moore, William Cottrill had developed secret processes for constructing mass incubation.

The Tyreel Mammoth Hatchery was registered as a company in 1921 with capital of £8,000 in £1 shares.[2]  Directors were Walter Le Roy Fry, William Cottrill and Albert William Moore.  Cottrill and Moore’s incubators and parts were to be installed on Fry’s ‘Laymore Poultry Farm’.[3]

Chicks sold included black Orpingtons and white Leghorn; in later years, the hatchery found a third breed to be profitable, the Australorp.

A hundred chicks could be purchased for £5 in 1922, and would be shipped by rail free of charge to the purchaser. An article in Farmer and Settler in 1932 stated that the company was turning out 250,000 chicks a year.[4]  Following the death of Mr Cottrill, the business was under the supervision of Albert Moore, with Fry as a sleeping partner and majority shareholder.

The Referee 29 June 1932, p18 and 19 carried photos of the interior and exterior of the hatchery, stating that the chicks were better housed than most human beings.  The accompanying article began: “Two types of people go into poultry-farming – those who are qualified for a mental home, or those who hope to be.”

Moore, who had begun with a 25-egg incubator, now hatched up to 12,000 eggs a week, in incubators holding up to 80,000 eggs at a time.  The hatchery stood on three acres of land, allowing room for expansion.  Moore had diversified into raising pullets, available for three shillings each, and hoped in the future to turn out chickens dressed for grilling.  Although the price for a hundred chicks had fallen to under £3 per hundred [cheep!], the business was highly profitable, and Moore’s plant was valued at up to £8,000.

He admitted that he did not know everything about eggs and chicks – he could not tell the sex of a newly-hatched chick! (Oddly, one of the few who could was Max Whitehead, the Manly rugby footballer, who was the model for the Chesty Bond underwear adverts.)

The business ceased trading in circa 1953.  Despite its name, at no point did it ever hatch mammoths.

---

[1] Propeller 29 August 1919, p7.

[2] Propeller 19 November 1921, p13.

[3] Daily Telegraph 19 November 1921, p13.

[4] Farmer and Settler 5 May 1932, p12.