Donald Shaver search widely for diversified breeding stock. Local breeders, knowing his reputation were reluctant to sell to him for fear of competition. In 1946, there were 256 registered chicken breeders in Canada. Shaver Poultry became the 257th. By 1958, only Shaver remained, along with seven other major poultry breeders worldwide. The principle of hybrid vigour had been well established for corn, but the costs and time required to test chicken crosses were higher. Small breeders (as Shaver was at the time) could not afford permanent scientific staff, so Shaver obtained assistance from geneticists conducting research at universities and government institutions. Shaver
Shaver Transportation Company steamboat business with two partners, Henry W. Corbett and A.S. Foster, both prominent members of the early business establishment in Portland, Oregon. They bought out Captain Edward Bureau and began doing business as the People's Freighting Company. Their first vessel was the steamboat "Manzanillo", which they put on the route down the Willamette and Columbia rivers from Portland to Clatskanie, Oregon. Shaver Transportation Company was known as the "Red Collar Line." The next two steamboats owned by the company after the "Manzanillo" were the "Sarah Dixon" (named after the mother of company founder James W. Shaver) and "G.W. Shaver," named