Raising corn on 300 acres to be used as feed for the breeder hens also helps to produce healthy, thriving poultry. ThisВ ensures constantВ monitoring and care to control the quality of the chicks produced. Not only does Townline hatch chicks, but they also use a вЂњhands-onвЂќ approach byВ raisingВ their own breeder flocks of 40,000 hens. has earned, and strive to keep, their reputation!

With 100 years and 4 generations of experience, we hope you will find Townline Poultry Farm, Inc. As such, new coops and additions to the hatchery have greatly changed the face of the farm. Over the past 5-10 years, backyard flocks have been gaining in popularity and Townline has risen to help meet the demand for baby chicks.

Fighting on, three of Henry and GertrudeвЂ™s sons, Jack, Richard, and Don took over the farm in 1988 as 3rd generation owners and operators. Others shut their doors altogether as a result of a lack of interest from buyers or heirs. Many moved south for reduced feed and heat costs. Not long after, the poultry industry began to dissipate in Zeeland due to the relatively inflated expense of raising poultry in the cold climate of Michigan. It was and continues to be, very common for children to help and maintain the farm, and Jacob and AdaвЂ™s son Henry took over the family business in 1940 with his wife Gertrude. Due to the growing poultry industry in town, it quickly became a chick hatchery. Townline was established in 1913 by Jacob and Ada Geerlings and originally began as a cow farm. is the only chicken hatchery left in Zeeland Detroit News called Zeeland вЂњMichiganвЂ™s chick-tropolis вЂ“ a town that contains but 3,000 persons yet produces 18 million baby chicks, ducks, and turkeys annually and ranks third in national importance as a hatchery center.вЂќ There were once as many as 40 hatcheries in the town and the schoolвЂ™s mascot even became the Zeeland Chix. During the 1920s through 1950s, Zeeland, Michigan was dubbed the вЂњbaby chick centerвЂќ of the Midwest.

Townline poultry farm