Maurice E. Bowers

FRANKLIN TWP. -- Maurice E. Bowers , who won the prestigious ``Golden Egg'' award for more than 50 years of service to the state's poultry industry, died Jan. 1, 1997, in Hunterdon Care Center in Raritan Township. He was 83. He was born in Hagerstown, Md., a son of Harry and Annie Ziegler Bowers , and lived in Somerville and then North Branch before moving to Franklin Township in 1969. His place was on property that was once the poultry farm of his father-in-law, the late Floyd Rupell. During the 1950s and 1960s producing eggs was a major business in Hunterdon County, with more than one million laying hens on county farms. New Jersey was one of the nation's leading egg production states. And Mr. Bowers played an active role with inventions and services to help chicken farmers. Mr. Bowers was in the poultry feed and health business from 1933, when he graduated from Winchester (Va.) High School, until retiring in 1985. He handled feed sales and service work in Virginia and West Virginia for two years. He then shifted to New Jersey, where he continued representing feed manufacturers until 1956, when he formed Bowers Poultry Health Service, custom formulating feed and helping farmers with their flock health problems. Starting in 1964 he had Delaware Valley Farmers Cooperative in Flemington custom-mill feed to his specifications. Then in 1976 he became affiliated with the Montgomery Bucks Farm Bureau mill in Pennsylvania, serving as its New Jersey sales agent. Besides helping farmers with their feed needs, he vaccinated, blood tested, caponed and culled birds for them. He received three patents for inventions used on chickens. One marks with ink each hen entering a laying nest, so the farmer can easily determine which hens have stopped producing eggs and should be sent to the soup factory. Another is a vaccinating table that rotates, allowing the rapid injection of different shots to a group of chickens. A catching apparatus he invented is adjustable, so it can be used anywhere, regardless of a farm's gate and chute size, to round up birds. ``I did the inventing more for publicity than to make money,'' he said in an interview on receiving the Golden Egg award in 1985. The New Jersey State Poultry Association presented the award, saying, ``You have extended yourself far beyond the call of duty by giving service not only to the poultry flocks of our state, but to the poultry men and women who raise and care for those flocks. '' He was a member of the Quakertown Fire Company and the Quakertown Recreation Club. He is survived by his wife, Edith Rupell Bowers ; a daughter, Nancy Redman of Rochester, Minn.; two grandchildren, and a great-granddaughter. Services were held Saturday in Holcombe-Fisher Funeral Home in Flemington. Burial was in Locust Grove Cemetery in Quakertown.