1946 -2026 Watching Steinbach Grow: Steinbach Hatchery earns splendid reputation

SEPTEMBER 25, 1959—Go into just about any district where people keep high-grade laying hens between the Ontario boundary and the Red River and chances are you will find a good percentage of the poultry originated at the Steinbach Hatchery.

The Steinbach Hatchery was the first in rural Manitoba to install a mill for the manufacturing of the new highly popular pellet feeds. The company is the holder of the third highest award for Honegger franchise hatcheries in the world, and has the distinction of being, by many years, the first hatchery established in this part of Manitoba.

To get the full story on the Steinbach Hatchery, one must talk to the firm’s manager, Peter F. Barkman, whose interest in chickens and layers goes back to his youth, when he kept a small flock as a hobby.

As a young, married man, Barkman was leader of the area’s poultry club, which was sponsored by the extension branch of the Department of Agriculture, and could be described as a forerunner to present day 4-H Clubs.

Barkman was working as a carpenter, but in his spare time he raised poultry. At that time, a man who owned two or three hundred chickens was a fairly big time poultry raiser, Barkman recalls.

Barkman got together with Isaac F. Loewen, Peter P.D. Reimer, and Peter G. Toews to plan a hatchery which would produce better lines of poultry and feed for farmers who wanted to raise hens and sell eggs. The hatchery would undertake to supply them with the kind of feed that laying hens should have. A shareholder company was founded, and the men began to sell shares.

Very few people had faith in the future of a hatchery at that time, and Barkman remembers they had a very difficult time selling any shares.

They did, however, manage to get the project launched, albeit in a very modest way. An old egg shipper’s list, shows that the four founders of the company didn’t have many hens themselves and the smallest shipper of eggs to the hatchery had only 31 hens.

The first hatchery was located in a small, rented building close to the present location. There were about 30 shareholders altogether at that time, Barkman was chosen manager, which is a job he has kept ever since.

In order to make the hatchery a year-round business, they began mixing feeds, a job they did by hand with a shovel on a clean space on the floor. Previous to coming in with the hatchery, Loewen used to mix chicken starter on his farm and sell it to some of his neighbours.

It is indeed a long step from mixing feed on the floor to the big mill with which the hatchery now mixes up to 30 tons of feed in a day.

Steinbach Hatchery started its own Poultry Man brand of feeds when it went into business and at that at that time the feed had only six ingredients, whereas now it contains double that amount.

In more recent years, the Steinbach Hatchery took over the franchise for the famous Honegger line of laying hens for the whole of Manitoba.

Steinbach Hatchery hatches all the year around, with a hatch almost every week and two hatches a week in the busy season. Size of the hatches depends upon the demand. In the off season, they hatch only on order.

The Steinbach Hatchery manager attributes the company’s success and good reputation to its products, both chicks and feed, and its people.

“We stand behind our products, both our chicks and our feed. If there is any difficulty, our trouble shooter, Walter Reimer, one of the best qualified poultrymen in the business, is on hand to give the poultryman the help he needs to get through the rough spots.”

The Steinbach Hatchery has a staff of 12 to 15 most of the year, with the highest peak being reached in hatching season. Of course, there is also the egg grading station, which buys eggs from anywhere and does a good business all the time.