BROILERS

ROASTERS

PUBLISHED BY
FARM-POULTRY PUBLiSHINa CO.,

t3S SUMMER ST., BOSTOH, JtlASS,

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

FARM-POULTRY SERIES No. 7,

Broilers^a=Roasters

THE

^Specialties of the Market Poultryman.

BV

vV

^ jvl
JOHN H. ROBINSON,

Editor of Farm-Poultry. Author of " Poultry-Craft "<^Tc

' ¥

$

\

PRICE 5O CE

Published by
FARM-POULTRY PUBLISHING CO.,
"v Boston, Mass.

^^ 1905.

COPYRIGHTED BY

FAKM-l'OULTKY PUB. CO.

1904.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

CHAPTER I.

Some General Information About Market
Poultry Culture.

1. Why Only Broilers and Roasters are Con-
sidered.— This book will treat especially, and almost
exclusively, of broilers and roasters because these are the
two classes of market poultry in which one making a
specialty of growing poultry (chickens) for market is
interested. It might be said that broilers and roasters are
the only chickens grown for market by specialists, for the
business poultry keeper, whatever branches he follows,
tries to work his surplus young stock into one or the other
of these two channels of trade, while the entire product
of "fowls," as old hens are classed on the market, may
be said to be a by-product of egg farming, the hen, as a
rule, not going to market until her owner feels that her
days of profitable laying are over. The u capon " is a
roaster. The "fry" of the west and south is, when a
small fry, about the size of the largest broilers in demand
in the eastern market. The large fry is not in special

4 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

demand in the big markets, and what stock of this grade
comes in is worked off as just ''chickens" at a figure
generally considerably lower than the price for the sizes
most in demand. It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say
that the least salable sizes are not sent to the market by
experienced growers. If for any reason they do not
market their chicks as broilers they hold them until they
will fill the bill as roasters.

2. What is a Broiler? — The dictionary definition,,
u a chicken, or the like, suitable for broiling," does not
describe a broiler so that one who did not know what kind
of a chicken is suitable for broiling is any the wiser for
having consulted the dictionary. It is possible to broil
and cook in this way very nicely chickens very much
larger than are sold on the market as broilers, but that does
not make such a chicken a broiler. The technically cor-
rect definition of this kind of "broiler" is a chicken or
other fowl such as is in general demand for broiling. The
difference in meaning is of no importance to the general
public, but the would-be producer of broilers should have
a clear appreciation of just what he is going to produce,
and why. His business is not merely to grow chickens
especially adapted for broiling, but to grow thrifty good
bodied chickens which are to be marketed at some one of
the sizes in general demand for broiling. He must always
look beyond his product to the market whence comes the
demand which gives that product special value.

3. The Sizes of Broilers the Market Calls for.—

The market demand today is for broilers of three sizes :
Small broilers, large broilers, and squab broilers. The
ordinary small broilers, the size most in demand during

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 5

the greater part 'of the year weigh, when dressed, plucked,
but undrawn, and with head and feet on, from two to
two and one-half pounds to the pair. They may weigh
less or more, but this is the desirable range of weights ;
that is, a pound to a pound and a quarter apiece.

The desirable average weights for large broilers are
three to three and one-half pounds to the pair ; that is, a
pound and a half to a pound and three-quarters apiece.
They may go two pounds or more each, but when the
desirable weights are exceeded they will not, as a rule,
bring as high prices per pound, so that there is seldom
gain, and may often be loss, by marketing these larger
chickens as broilers.

Squab broilers have been in general demand for only a
few years. They are small broilers weighing a pound and
a half to two pounds to the pair, three-quarters of a pound
to a. pound each. The demand for them is mostly confined
to the latter half of the winter. The call for squab
broilers seems to have begun with the willingness of
caterers who found it difficult to get suitable game for
banquets and like occasions to use broilers smaller than
had previously been considered fit for the table, as a sub-
stitute for game. It is worth , recording, as an item of
interest to those engaged in producing squab broilers, that
for some years the.re was a good deal of sentiment preju-
dicial to slaughtering chicks at that tender age expressed.
It is also noteworthy that after the popularity of the squab
broiler became assured, there arose for a little while some
demand for still smaller chickens, and chickens only a few
weeks old were served to epicures in search of novel
edibles, but the public would have none of them.

6 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

4. Where the Broilers Go. — The .broiler grower
will, perhaps, find it easier to conform closely to market
requirements as to desirable sizes of stock, if he knows
something of where his produce finally goes. Generally
the grower sells to a dealer, so does not come in contact
with the consumers. The large buyers of broilers are the
high priced hotels and restaurants, the caterers who pro-
vide "swell spreads" for clubs, reunions, etc., and
wealthy families who do a great deal of entertaining. It
is customary to serve each guest with half a " broiler," or
with a whole " squab broiler," the broiler forming but one
course of the meal. So both because each guest would eat
but a small amount of " chicken," and because it is
economy to serve the smallest portion admissible, the
larger broilers are not readily taken by this class of cus-
tomers, except at practically the same price as smaller
ones.

For tables where those who feel so disposed may eat
their fill of broilers the large sizes would be preferred. It
is not possible to give an idea of the relative proportion of
the demand for ordinary broilers from public houses and
private families, but the public houses take probably nine-
tenths of all the squab broilers marketed ; and probably the
greater part of the broilers of this size are taken for
banquets or like special occasions. It is no uncommon
thing during the season to hear of buyers from city com-
mission honses and markets scouring the country in their
vicinity for squab broilers, and frequently offering more
for chicks barely up to the usual minimum weight than
the grower could get for the same chicks two months
later.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 7

. What is a Roaster? — Here the dictionaries
are hardly up to date in their description of a roaster
as "an article or animal suitable for roasting, espe-
cially a pig/' and in the various transpositions of the
words of that definition (taken from the Standard
Dictionary) in the other dictionaries. Roasting chickens
are used so much more than roasting pigs that the
word " roaster" today probably suggests chicken to many
times more people than think of little pigs when they hear
that word. A fowl suitable for roasting must be a young
fowl about full grown, but still soft meated, and to roast
satisfactorily must be moderately fat. Roasters are
roughly classed as " small roasters " and u large roasters."
By far the greatest demand is for small roasters weighing
eight to ten pounds to the pair, though the demand for
large roasters weighing as much apiece as these do to the
pair is steadily increasing. Singular as- it may seem the
production of large roasters is the most profitable branch
of market poultry culture, duck growing alone excepted.
The reasons for this will be discussed elsewhere.

6. Broiler Growing as an Exclusive Business. —

Growing broilers on a large scale as a specialty began at
Hammonton, N. J., nearly twenty years ago. Those first
engaging in it there were mostly men whose regular
occupation was fruit growing, gardening, or some such
pursuit which left them some months of comparative leisure
each winter. The always high prices for young chickens
in late winter and early spring and the developments of
artificial incubation and brooding seem to have suggested
broiler raising to some of these men as a possible profitable
occupation for this period. Many tried it. Some made

8 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

it pay well ; others doubtless made claims of profit that
were exaggerated or wholly false. The industry became
so popular locally that the fame of it spread far and wide.
Many people went to Hammonton as the ideal location for
broiler growing to locate there and "get rich quick."
Many others went there to learn the business and go and
establish themselves elsewhere. The boom was overdone
at Hammonton. The inevitable reaction came, and for a
time interest in broiler growing languished there, but the
special adaptability of this occupation as an adjunct to the
fruit and garden interests of that locality kept many inter-
ested, and though with the development of broiler culture
elsewhere the town has lost much of its prestige as the
broiler town, it is doubtless true as is sometimes stated, that
more broilers are produced there now each year than when
jthe boom there was at its height.

One immediate result of the boom at Hammonton was
the building of large broiler plants in many other places.
Anyone familiar with the current poultry literature of the
last fifteen years can recall the names of a number of such
plants which have been built and equipped at large
^expense, and extensively advertised as successful and net-
rting very substantial profits each year until the owners'
cash, credit or courage failed, and the abandonment of the
•project or a change to other lines of poultry culture came
as a virtual confession of the untruth of the statements
given out while the plant was in operation.

It is a matter of first importance to those who may
become interested in this subject to get the facts in regard
to broiler culture as an exclusive industry, and not to allo\v
themselves to be deceived by contrary claims which may be
made for plants still in operation. Scores of such plants

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 9

have been established, many of them on a large scale and
with practically unlimited capital to back them. The total
sum sunk in such investments in the last fifteen years is
enormous, but there is not, so far as the writer is able to
learn, today existing anywhere a single successful
exclusive broiler plant. It is necessary to emphasize
this fact, because through statements in old books and
papers as well as through sensational stories which owners
of new plants and not over-well informed or over-scru-
pulous writers and publishers from time to time give out,
many people are deceived into investing capital in an
undertaking which as an exclusive specialty cannot by any
possibility prove profitable under present conditions of
demand and supply.

A brief statement of the reasons for this will enable the
reader to guard against being misled by stories of great
success with broilers as an exclusive specialty.

Making a specialty of broilers will give a " living
profit," that is, a profit which gives the grower compen-
sation appropriate to the amount of the permanent invest-
ment and to his skill and labor, only for those broilers sold
during the period of high prices, and the profits for broil-
ers marketable during this period are not great enough to
offset low profits at other times.

The great bulk of the broilers which come to market
come from the general farms and from egg farms, and
from the time these begin to be received in quantity until
toward the end of the summer the market is amply sup-
plied from these sources. Indeed they would during
several months be a drug on the market were not the sit-
uation relieved by putting thousands of tons of the best
into cold storage to be held until arrivals of fresh stock

10 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

cease coming, or to be worked out at any time the demand
indicates a profit atisfactory to the speculators who handle
them. The cold storage supply as long as it lasts has a
tendency to keep down prices on the new crop of broilers,
so that between the advance of the beginning of the season
of good supply of broilers from the farms, and the exten-
sion of the period in which this supply of broilers is avail-
able by putting the daily surpluses into cold storage to be
sold later, the season of attractive prices for the broiler
specialist has been somewhat shortened, and is now so
short that among those acquainted with the situation it is
universally recognized as the fact that the profitable way
to produce broilers is to make broiler growing one of the
lines of a general poultry business.

7. Broiler Growing as a Feature of a General
Poultry Business. — When conducted in this way broiler
growing is profitable. This does not mean that it invari-
ably pays a profit, or that anyone can make it pay. The
broiler grower must understand his business, and there
will be lean as well as fat years ; but taking one season
with another one who is fairly expert will make enough
on what broilers he can produce and market during the
period of high prices to make him feel satisfied with results
of his work in this line. It fits into a time when unless
one who has the equipment for artificial hatching and
brooding is growing roasters, that equipment would be
idle, and it works into a general business rather better than
the growing of large roasters, because the broiler grower
can have his broilers practically all out of the way before
beginning to hatch for stock purposes or to produce pullets
for egg farming. Growing broilers in this way is worth

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 1 1

the attention of anyone who has the equipment and can
spare the time.

8. Growing Soft Roasters as an Exclusive
Industry. — As has already been stated there is probably
no branch of the production of market poultry products T
except duck growing, that pays better than this. In what
is known as the u South Shore " district of eastern Massa-
chusetts, the country about the towns of Norwell and Ran-
dolph, the production of soft roasters engages the attention
of a great many people. A considerable proportion of
them make it an exclusive business, and perhaps the
majority of those interested in it limit their attention ta
poultry to this one feature.

It is fortunate for those established in the business that
the conditions under which it is carried on discourage
attempts of people without either experience or capital to
engage in it. The equipment required to grow roasters on1
a large scale is not to be put in for a few hundred dollars.
The income comes almost wholly in about two months irr
early summer. During the remainder of the year expenses
are constant and sometimes heavy. A man must either
have capital enough to go through most of the year with-
out drawing money out of the business for current or
living expenses, or must have a reputation as a grower
that will enable him to get the backing or credit he needs-
to carry his crop of roasters until ready for market. If it
were possible to make a beginning with as little capital a&
is often used for a start in other lines of poultry culture, or
if there was any prospect of realizing a steady income
there would be many tempted to go into the business every
year. As it is a good many people go into it who ought

12 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

to stay out, and in communities where growers sure of
their position go steadily on year after year there is always
A liberal sprinkling of newcomers who will hardly last a
season, with here and there one who achieves a success
which transfers him to the class of experts. »

9. Growing Soft Roasters as an Adjunct to
Other Occupation. — In the communities referred to
above there are besides the successful and experimental
plants which engage the time and attention of one or more
men, many people who have time and facilities to grow a
few hundred roasters annually, and who, living where the
methods and profitableness of this line of work are well
understood, take to it naturally. Some of them are strik-
ingly successful, easily making additions to their regular
incomes so substantial that within a few years they have
given up other occupation, and are engaged exclusively in
growing roasters. Some, as it is to be expected, fail and
quit in discouragement. Others, probably the greater
number, make enough to satisfy them, and continue grow-
ing roasters as a side ime on such scale as their other
engagements permit.

10. Growing Roasters as a Feature in a General
Poultry Business. -It is in this way that most of the
small roasters are produced. They come from the yards
of breeders, from egg farms, and from the general farms.
They are for the most part the surplus cockerels of the
general purpose breeds raised and handled in the usual
way, and marketed just as they approach sexual maturity.
Considering the circumstances of their production, they
might be considered as a by-product rather than a specialty
with their growers, though the profit in them, if they fill

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 13

the demands of the best market, and are marketable at the
right time, is good enough to make it worth while for
those producing them to pay more attention to these points,,
and perhaps to make such changes in their general stock
and system as will give them the most profitable by-product
of soft roasters.

11. Combining Broilers and Roasters. — This com-
bination does not appeal much to the large roaster
specialist who had demonstrated to his own satisfaction
that for one who is able to carry his stock through to
roaster size the best prices paid for broilers are no tempta-
tion to dispose of growing stock at the broiler season.
The grower of large roasters considers that his work is
practically done, that all ordinary risks are over when the
chicken has reached broiler size, and nothing more
remains but to keep it supplied with feed, keep the pullets
if possible from laying, and hope that the proportion of
caponized cockerels that develop intcT slips will be small.
The end and aim of all his plans and work is to have as
many large roasters as possible ready to market at the
height of the season. With the broiler grower it is differ-
ent. Many times he is in doubt as to whether to market a
particular lot of chicks as broilers, or hold them to sell as
roasters, and many times he inclines to hold them, or
would if he could handle them to advantage without inter-
fering with his other departments. A lack of knowledge
of the easy and economical methods which prevail in the
" soft roaster" section has no doubt kept many from hold-
ing chicks for roasters which would have been far more
profitable if so handled. Then the ease of handling
roasters, with the proper facilities, is such that it would
be a comparatively simple matter for many a poultryman

14 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

who gives some attention to the production of broilers, to»
grow a nice lot of roasters each season without adding
much to his labors, or encroaching on his other stock.
These things, mentioned in a general way in this pre-
liminary chapter will be discussed in more detail in the
appropriate connection in subsequent chapters.

12. How About the Demand for and the Supply
of these Classes of Table Poultry? — Notwithstand-
ing occasional brief periods of overloaded markets, it may
be truthfully said that the supply of extra choice table
poultry, and even of ordinary good table poultry, is not
adequate to meet the demand. We have to take the situ-
ation at large to determine a point of this kind, and we
have also to consider the ranges and apparent tendencies
of prices. For several years now all poultry of good
grades has been higher than usual in the large centers of
population, and no grounds for anticipating an early or
considerable reduction of values exist. It is clear to any
student of market conditions that the demand increases
faster than the supply increases, or is at all likely to
increase, until facilities for instruction and training in
poultry culture are much more efficient than at present.
No prospective poultry grower need worry about the
supply exceeding the demand, and leaving him without a
satisfactory market for his products. What he needs to
concern himself most about is to fit himself to produce
good goods economically. When he can do that he can
live comfortably through the period of reaction from a
boom — if boom there should be ; but there are at present
no indications of a production that would glut the market
for more than a very brief period.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

CHAPTER II.

The Best Kinds of Stock and the Adapt-
ability of Different Breeds to These
Special Purposes.

13. Points of a Good Broiler. — The ideal broiler is
a plump, rather fine boned bird, meaty in every section.
In most American markets a yellow skinned, yellow legged
bird is preferred, and it is therefore policy for anyone pro-
ducing large numbers of broilers to use yellow skinned
stock. In the best markets — the markets where prices
are best — however, the color of skin and legs is not of so
much importance as good quality of meat. To explain
this fully it should be said that while a buyer in, say, Bos-
ton, would take a lot of yellow skinned broilers in prefer-
ence to a lot of white skinned and white or black legged
broilers, he generally would not object to a few chicks that
were not yellow skinned in a lot which was on the whole
satisfactory in color ; while in case the yellow skinned lot
were of inferior quality he would probably give the other
the preference. This point is one which need not give
much concern to the grower, for not more than one or two
in a hundred poultry keepers are likely to have a larger
proportion of chicks of undesirable color characteristics.

i6

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

Barred Plymouth Rocks.

than will be readily taken by the market. Where growers
fail often'est is in the use of breeding stock not capable of
producing really good broilers and in loss of quality of
meat through slow growth of chicks.

What has been said of color should be qualified with
reference to squab broilers. Black or dark feathered
chickens when killed for squab broilers have a blueness of
the skin on some parts of trie carcass which disappears as
they grow older, but which at this stage renders it very
uninviting in appearance.

A chick with black or dark pinfeathers, while it may be
dressed clean when of a pound to two pounds weight is
more difficult to make attractive looking than a chick with
white or buff plumage in which the pinfeathers need not

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

be so carefully removed. So the grower after some experi-
ence in dressing is apt to give the preference to stock which
gives him no dark pinfeathers.

The stickler for the whole truth and for absolutely clean
picking may affirm
that all stubs ought to
be removed before the
chick is eaten. Some
even go so far as to
say they prefer the
dark pinfeathers, be-
cause then when a car-
cass looks clean they
know that all stubs
have been removed .
Such considerations
are not likely to ap-
peal to the grower*
who makes part of his

living from broilers. White plymouth Rock Hen.

To the consumer what looks clean is clean, and the grower
finds it to his interest to grow the kind of chicks that are
easiest to make look clean.

14. Kind of Stock From Which to Hatch Chicks
for Broilers. — It is quite customary, even among poul-
trymen making a good deal of a specialty of broiler grow-
ing, to consider stock not especially fit for any other breed-
ing purpose good enough for the production of broilers.
That this is wrong must be clear to anyone who gives the
subject a moment's reflection. To get good broilers,
chicks that have the desired conformation and grow

i8

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

rapidly, you must use for the parent stock birds of good
development and vigor that were themselves quick growers.
Very much of the unsatisfactory results in broiler growing
are directly traceable to the use of unsuitable breeding
stock. It is not necessary that there should be perfection
or even excellence (from the fancier's standpoint) in color
of the breeding birds selected. A white fowl though so

liberally sprinkled
with black ticking
that a fancier would
promptly reject it for
any of his own pur-
poses might be an
excellent fowl for the
production of broilers
if good in shape and
vigorous. It might
have a poor comb,
or discolored ear-
lobes, or any one or
more of numerous
superficial faults that
might be mentioned,
yet be just as good

Buff Plymouth Rock Cock. for fne production of

broilers as though perfect in every one of these respects.
But if it is narrow, or shallow bodied, or lacking in
breadth or depth of breast, or too long in neck, body
and legs to be symmetrical ; if it is in any way deformed
— crooked breasted, crooked backed, wry tailed, knock
kneed — it should be rejected, for such blemishes make
poor and unsightly carcasses.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

15. Points of a Good Roaster. — The ideal roaster
might be described in almost the same words as used in
the general description of the ideal broiler, but to complete
the description in terms which will indicate the differences
(besides difference in size) between them, we must say
that greater length of body and breast is desirable in a
roaster than is found in stock making the nicest looking
broilers, and that
the carcass of the
roaster should show
in every section a
fuller rotundity —
more mature devel-
opment— than the
broiler. Yellow
skin and legs are, if
anything, more gen-
erally demanded in
roasters than in
broilers, but the
color of the feathers
is of less impor-
tance, for the birds
generally being
dressed when well grown, are at that stage comparatively
free from pinfeathers.

Buff Wyandotte Hen.

16. Kind of Stock From Which to Hatch Chicks
for Roasters. — For small roasters quick growing stock is
to be preferred ; for large roasters, slow maturing stock,
which remains soft meated until nearly full grown, is
found most satisfactory by the growers who plan to have

20

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

their stock marketable when prices are highest. The reason
for this is the difficulty experienced in hatching chicks in
mid-winter. If all chicks needed for the best large roaster

trade could be
hatched at that
time, a single
kind o f stock
,*- could easily be
used to produce
both small and
large roasters.
The same stock
might not pro-
duce the best of
both sizes, but
the grower could
use it to good
advantage for
White Wyandotte Cock. both demands by

grading dressed poultry according to size, or by selling a
lot as small roasters, or holding it to make large roasters,
as seemed in each particular case most profitable. There
is, of course, more or less of this done, but the growers
who make a specialty of large roasters find that to get out
what chicks they need — to make sure of them — they
must begin hatching in the fall, and use stock that matures
slowly, as Asiatics, or the larger and slower maturing
specimens of the American breeds.

17. Using Mixed or Mongrel Stock to Produce
Market Poultry. — If stock that is not thoroughbred
answers the description given for stock for the production

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

of broilers and roasters there is no good reason why it
should not be used. Stock that fills those requirements is,
as a rule, pretty well bred, though not pure in blood. It
certainly would be preferable to pure bred stock which did
not fulfill the requirements. There is a great deal of such
pure bred stock ; in fact, the greater number of specimens
in the average flock of thoroughbred fowls would be
unhesitatingly rejected by any grower alive to the impor-
tance of using breeding stock of the type he desired to
reproduce in his market poultry. But while it is said that
the breeder should, in his selection, be governed by the
characteristics of the
fowls rather than by
their alleged pedigree,
or want of definite
pedigree, it must also
be said that one is
much more likely to
find what he wants in
thoroughbreds of the
popular varieties, and
if he cannot find what
he wants, and has to
develop it, he will
attain his object much
more rapidly by using
thoroughbred stock.

There is, of course.

White Wyandotte Pullet.

plenty of good stock excellently suited to the needs of the
market poultry grower in the country, but the man who
wants it does not always succeed in getting it, while the
fanciers' lack of knowledge of just what is needed, or the

22

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

disposition to work off on the ''practical" grower any-
thing he will not positively refuse to take, sometimes
makes it very difficult for a market poultry grower to
deal with them.

18. Should Broiler and Roaster Growers "Make"
Their Own Eggs for Hatching? — Most of those grow-
ing them in large numbers either do not, or produce only a

—^~ r- -g^ part of what they

'

part

need. The practical
difficulty in the way
of a grower providing
the eggs needed to
hatch out a large num-
ber of chicks in winter
is that it would require
SQ large a stock of lay-
ing hens to produce
the eggs needed that
the grower cannot
handle both branches

Lf^p8 of the business. The

________ - ' • ••' . _j soft roaster growers

R. C. Rhode Island Red Cockerel. have until very re-
cently produced practically none of the eggs they used.
Within a few years many of them have begun to build up
stocks of breeding fowls from which to produce their own
eggs, but there are few, if any, that do not still buy the
most of the eggs they use. These eggs are bought from
farmers throughout the vicinity. The large and steady
demand for eggs for this purpose at a price considerably in
advance of regular market prices is a strong inducement to

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

farmers to keep stock of the kind the growers want, and to
make every effort to have eggs in abundance and of good
fertility at the time the growers want them. The success
of those from whom he buys eggs in getting good fertility
is an important fac-
tor in the success of
the grower each sea-
son, and the utter
inadequacv of the
supply of eggs for
those who want to
grow soft roasters
keeps a good many
out of the business.
A great many peo-
ple going into the
production of broil-
ers buy eggs wher-
ever they can get
them. Though
sometimes very sat-
isfactory hatches are
obtained from such eggs, the general results under such
conditions are so far from satisfactory that it is well for
one contemplating broiler growing to make sure of a suffi-
cient supply of eggs before he goes very far with his plans.
If he keeps fowls himself he should know what he could
reasonably expect to get from his own stock. In nearly
every community there are a few people with a reputa-
tion for getting eggs at all seasons. These are the people
to look up and contract with for the eggs one must buy.
When either of the specialties we are discussing is run as a

5. C. Rhode Island Red Hen.

By Courtesy of F. D. Kead.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

branch of a poultry
business the propo-
sition is somewhat
different. In such
cases the general way
is to adapt the plans
for growing market
poultry to the re-
sources of the plant.

19. Adaptability
of Different Breeds
for Broiler and
Roaster Growing.

- Plymouth Rocks,
W y a n d o 1 1 e s and
Rhode Island Reds,
Light Brahma Cock. comprising the popu-

lar varieties of what is known as the " American class"
of fowls are best suited to fill the bill of requirements for
a fowl for producing both broilers and roasters. For the
Canadian markets the Orpingtons, fowls of the same gen-
eral type, but having flesh colored legs and white skin are
generally preferred. Fowls of this size and type give
plump broilers at any age, and good small roasters, while
in all these breeds, but especially in the Plymouth Rocks,
there are many stocks from which large roasters rivaling
the Asiatics in size can be produced. In considering the
•question of breed or variety the reader should bear in mind
that in discussing the varieties I refer to the characteris-
tics of good typical specimens. The question of color of
plumage was considered in ^ 13 and 14.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 2$

For large roasters the Asiatics, and especially the Light
Brahmas, have the preeminence, the Brahmas being used
almost to the exclusion of other breeds in the great soft
roaster section. The Light Brahma used here is not as a
rule quite up to standard size and weight ; but as good
average weight Brahmas for breeding purposes are always
in demand it may be inferred that the general use of the
smaller birds is due to the fact that they are more abundant
rather than to their being more desirable. Indeed growers
in that section say that the market demand for large birds
is steadily increasing. Chicks of the Asiatic breeds do
not as a rule make satisfactory broilers, but by a selection
of stock of a plump and rather blocky type for breeding
purposes one can get broilers from Asiatics that cannot be
excelled.

The Mediterranean,
Polish, and Hamburg
breeds are rarely con-
sidered in treating of
table poultry. Gen-
erally speaking, and
speaking of the ordi-
nary stocks of these
varieties, for which,
with the exception of
the Minorca, there are
no standards of weight
required, each one of
them lacks in one or
more feature desirable
i n market poultry. LIght Brahma Hen>

26 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

None of them but the Leghorns have the color of legs
and skin almost universally demanded. In Leghorns,
though the average stock is too small, there are many
stocks of Leghorns of good size which will produce
excellent broilers and small roasters. Indeed, I have
had broilers from heavy bodied good sized Leghorns
that grew faster than Plymouth Rock chicks under the
same conditions make as nice looking broilers as I have
ever seen, and were equal to any in quality. Such
Leghorn stock is not common, however, and the most
that can be said of the use of Leghorns for market poultry
is that the largest types generally found make broilers that
are fair as compared with those produced from average
good Plymouth Rock and Wyandotte stock, while the
largest and slowest maturing cockerels, if killed before
their meat becomes hard, make very nice small roasters.
Pullets of similar characteristics would also make nice
small roasters, but the demand for them as layers is such
that they are almost invariably reserved for that purpose.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 27

CHAPTER III.

Location. — Land. — Methods in General,

20. Location. — The question of location presents itself
to a person interested in the production of market poultry
in one of two forms. If he is already established in a place
the question is : What branches of market poultry culture
can be adapted to his circumstances ; or if he desires to try
a special branch, whether that branch can be pursued to
advantage by one situated as he is. If he is free to locate
himself in the place which seems best adapted to the line
of work he proposes to follow, the question is to find such
places and to select that which offers most advantages.

If either broilers or roasters are to be produced in con-
siderable quantities, they can be sold to advantage only
where there are considerable numbers of people who are
not obliged to figure living expenses closely, who can and
will buy what they want with little regard to price. As a
rule this class is not numerous outside of the large cities-
and their suburbs, except at health and pleasure resorts.
The large cities give an all year round market for choice
grades of market poultry. Resorts of the classes mentioned
furnish excellent markets during their seasons. In all of

28' BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

these places the demand is on the whole so much greater
than the supply that so far as the individual producer is
concerned it is practically unlimited. The poultry man
near such a market, or having shipping facilities which
bring such a market near him, may plan for as large a
product as he can handle without fear that his produce
\\ill prove unsalable, or salable only at a figure which
leaves him little profit.

One who cannot reach such a market handily may still
find it profitable to produce market poultry of different
kinds to suit his local demand, which, though limited, is
iipt to be good in any prosperous town as long as produc-
tion is in proper ratio to the demand. The grower who
lias access%to large markets may find it to his advantage to
make a specialty of some one kind of market poultry, or
at appropriate seasons to produce as much of certain kinds
as he can, but the poultryman who is dependent on a small
market must nearly always produce a little of each of the
different kinds of poultry required for the best class of
trade.

In selecting a location for a roaster plant, or for a plant
to be devoted largely to broiler production, one must get
near a large market, that is, within easy shipping distance
of it, and, if possible, he should try to locate where there
are others interested in the same special line of work.
Where the market is limited, one must avoid competition ;
but where the demand is so good that there is no competition
between producers, except the natural rivalry to excel, one
can have all the advantages of proximity to others engaged
in the same business, without any of the disadvantages that
sometimes attend such conditions.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 29

21. Land — How Much and What Kind ? — For the

production of broilers little land is required. During
winter and early spring in northerly latitudes a little strip
in front of the brooder house is all that can be used for the
broilers, and even this can be used only in favorable
weather. A great many small broilers are grown entirely
indoors. Thus it will be seen that the installation of
facilities for the production of thousands of small broilers
would take only a small area of land, and broiler raising as-
an adjunct to other lines of poultry culture, or as an
adjunct of some other business, can be carried on for a
time on a site which gives room only for the necessary
buildings.

The objection to establishing a plant on so limited a site
is that the equipment cannot be used to good advantage for
other purposes, and hence will stand idle or be used with
little profit during a considerable part of each year. The
broiler season is a short season. The same equipment
used for early broilers can also be used for summer chick-
ens if there is land enough to give them the large yards
they should have. If one attempts to run both winter and
summer chickens in the same house with such small yards
as are adequate for winter conditions, he may do very well
for a few seasons, but as the ground becomes tainted, his
chickens cease to thrive, and usually the poultryman whose
plant is in this condition struggles through several unsatis-
factory seasons before he realizes just where the trouble
lies.

For a large stock of roasters considerable land is required,
for the stock is mostly about half grown when spring opens,
and as it is not to be marketed for several months, the

30 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

grower saves labor in caring for his fowls if he has land
enough to spread them out well. Besides this, although
the conditions of growing roasters admit of planting the
3and on which they have run after they are marketed, and
growing late crops on it, if the land is heavily stocked with
poultry year after year so much fertilizer is added to the
land that planting it for a part of a season does not take
the manure out of the soil fast enough to keep it as clean
.as desirable. Growers who have been established on farms
which were ample as long as the land could take the
manure almost invariably arrive within, at most, ten or
twelve years, at the point where they feel they should have
land enough to move the stock about more and give land
that has been occupied for several seasons a rest for an
equal period. This is a point which it is hard to make
either the beginner or one who has had a few successful
seasons on a small plant appreciate to the extent of locat-
ing where he has two or three times as much land as he is
likely to have occasion to use for some years to come.
There are roaster plants producing 4,000 to 5,000 chickens
£L season on ten or twelve acres of land, but I do not think
.any of the proprietors of such plants would start again on
so small a farm. With two, three or four times as much
land one insures himself against being handicapped in the
future for want of land room.

As to the kind of land, I think it may be said that the
day when land that was not fit for any other purpose was
considered just the thing for poultry is about gone by. Of
course no sensible person would go to the vicinity of a
large city and buy high priced garden land to keep poultry
<on, but there is a medium between land of that class and

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 31

land wholly unsuitable for cultivation. All things con-
sidered the most desirable land for a poultry farm is usually
either light new land that when cleared will be suitable for
tillage, or worn out tillage land. On either of these the
poultry can be run much longer without change than on a
rich soil or one that has been for some time in a good state
of cultivation. Such lands are comparatively low priced,
while if properly handled for poultry their value for other
purposes may be so much increased that in the event of
its becoming desirable for the poultryman to change his
location he can get a fair price for his farm for farming
purposes ; while if he had established himself on land as
unsuitable for growing crops of any kind as many of the
poultry farms are, he would either have to remain there or
sacrifice his land in order to make a change.

In buying land for a poultry farm, then, by all means
buy land that crops can be grown upon. If you cannot
farm the land yourself there are still" few places where it
would be advisable to start a poultry farm where one could
not readily rent his extra land for at least enough to pay
taxes on it and interest on the investment in it, and when
the time comes that he needs more land or a change of
land for his poultry, he has it.

22. Broiler and Roaster Growers Use Artificial
Methods. — There are some growers of soft roasters grow-
ing a few hundred a year who hatch and brood their
chickens with heqs, getting most of the chicks out in the
fall, but as a rule growers of both broilers and roasters use
artificial methods of hatching and brooding. Indeed with-
out the incubator and brooder these branches of the busi-
ness could never have been developed as they have been.

32 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

We need not discuss here whether it is better to use incu-
bators and brooders than to use hens during spring and
summer. It is the production of winter chickens that we
are considering at present, and for this the artificial appli-
ances are indispensable, the exception to their use noted
above being one of the kind that proves the rule, for it is
practicable only when operations are on a very limited
scale. For late fall, early and mid-winter hatches broody
hens cannot be obtained in sufficient numbers to hatch
chicks on a large scale. For later hatches they may be,,
but the general tendency of hens is to wean their chicks
early at that season, and hence the hens are most unreliable
for brooding purposes at the season when it would be most
desirable that they should remain long with their broods.

Hatching with hens and brooding artificially are some-
times combined, but rarely now where large numbers of
chicks are produced out of the natural season. In short,
wherever natural methods are used in the production of
broilers and roasters it is because the venture is in the
nature of a makeshift until arrangements for the use of
artificial methods can be made.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

CHAPTER IV.

Buildings and Equipment.

23. About Incubators. — This is one of the points on
which one not familiar with the work of the different
makes of incubators thinks it would be to his advantage to
have specific advice from some disinterested person who
did know something of what was being done with differ-
ent machines. As an editor of a poultry paper, visiting
many poultrymeii every season, and' in correspondence
with many more, I am supposed by a great many people
to be able to give such advice, and accused by some of
being unwilling to do so because recommending one
machine would result in the withdrawal of the advertising
patronage of the manufacturers of other incubators. A
number of such .persons are not inclined to accept as
sincere and truthful the statement I frequently make in
reply to such questions, that I do not know which is the
best machine ; that as nearly as I can judge from observa-
tions and reports there is little difference in the results
obtained from different machines. One make of machine
will suit one man better than any other. Another man
just as successful in hatching will prefer a different
machine. Many operators use two or more makes of

34 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

incubators at the same time, and find so little difference
between them that they have no preference. One of the
most expert operators I know told me he would be afraid
to affirm that any one incubator would hatch better than
another, because a number of times in his experience
when one season's work seemed to show a certain machine
superior to others run with it, the next season's work
would entirely change the relative status of the machines
used.

The explanation of this is that machines differing in
principle and construction sometimes do their best work
under quite different conditions. At one time the atmos-
pheric conditions may be especially favorable to one of two
machines, and it will do superior work. At another time
conditions may be such that another machine will do
better. Again, conditions may not be favorable to the
best results possible from either machine, and they may
work about alike.

Some men are on the whole equally successful with
all the different machines they try, others will be very suc-
cessful with one or two kinds of incubators, but always
unsuccessful with other makes, while not infrequently we
find people who never seem to acquire the knack of run-
ning any machine with satisfactory results. One can never
tell what he can do or how he will succeed with any par-
ticular make of machine until he tries. Still, as the aver-
age man or woman with any mechanical knack at all can
take almost any incubator and get fair results from it, no
one need feel that time and money spent in experimenting
with incubators is going to be wasted. It is with incu-
bators as it is with breeds, with houses, with methods c.f

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 35

feeding, etc. There are many good ones, and there are
also many people getting very good results though their
equipment and methods are far from being all that is desir-
able, but however a person may begin sooner or later (if
he stays) he works around to houses, breeds, methods,
machines that suit him.

The most practical advice I can give in regard to choice
of an incubator is to urge one beginning with them to buy
mot more than one or two incubators of medium capacity,
say 100 to 200 eggs each before he is sure he can run that
make of incubator satisfactorily, which means of course,
beginning in a small way. That certainly is how anyone
who has had no experience in artificial incubation should
begin, yet every year a great many people who have never
run an incubator and have it all to learn are equipping
plants on which they start with from five or six to fifteen
or twrenty incubators, and while, -as I have said, the dif-
ferences between incubators as shown by general results is
not considerable, the differences between operators as
shown by experiences with the same machines are such
that each operator wants to be sure which machines will
suit him best before investing in many incubators, other-
wise one is likely to find himself before long in the pre-
dicament of having to either use machines with which he
cannot do his best work, or change machines at consider-
able expense, and perhaps temporary loss.

24. Brooding Systems and Brooders. — Much of
what has been said of relative merits of incubators will
apply equally to brooders, and to some extent^to brooding
systems, though of late years one system of brooding seems

36 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

to be outranking the other in the favor of growers of winter
chickens.

In artificial brooding there are two principal systems or
methods — the continuous pipe system in which the chick-
ens hover under pipes heated by hot water or steam, the
pipes extending the length of the house and connecting
with one large heater which supplies all the heat required,
and separate " individual " brooders of a capacity of fifty
to one hundred chicks each, having each its own lamp or
stove heater.

In discussing the merits of the two systems it should be
said first of all that the brooder " problem " has not yet
been brought so near a satisfactory conclusion as has the
hatching of chickens by artificial means. The two brood-
ing systems have seemed to alternate in popular favor.
Individual brooders came first. Then came the pipe sys-
tem, and for awhile it was generally preferred. Then
some great improvements in individual brooders wrere
made, and the separate brooder did so much more satisfac-
tory work, especially for the youngest chicks, that many
growers adopted the plan of using what were called com-
bination brooder houses in which pens for the youngest
chicks were fitted with individual fct nursery" brooders,
while for chicks two to three weeks of age and upward
the less laborious system of pipe brooding was used.
Within the last year or two the sentiment of the larger
growers seems to have swung back to the pipe system.
This is no doubt due to the improvements made in it, par-
ticularly the improvements in regulating the heat by means
of electric* thermostats and automatic drafts and damper
adjustments of the heater.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 37

But though the pipe system now appears to have the
preference with large operators, the individual brooder is,
and no doubt will continue to be, very generally used by
smaller operators and by those whose work is in an experi-
mental stage, because the first cost is less, and it can often
be adapted to existing house arrangements with little or no
expense, when to install a pipe system would necessitate
remodeling a building. The individual brooders being
operated separately can be put in any convenient coop,
shed, poultry house or other outbuilding, one here and one
there, an advantage which appeals to one who does not
want to make the changes in or additions to his plant
which a pipe brooder house would require.

25. Incubator Cellars. — Incubators can be, and are

successfully operated in all sorts of places, but every other
arrangement for them is of a makeshift character, either a
terrrporary arrangement, pending the construction of an
incubator cellar, or a substitute for the special incubator
cellar, when for good reasons that cannot be built. When
only one, or, at most, a few machines are to be operated,
some substitute arrangement may be advisable, but when a
greater number of incubators are to be operated a room
constructed especially with reference to the requirements
of this .work should be considered a necessity, and wher-
ever it is possible to set apart an appropriate room exclu-
sively for incubation, though but a single machine is to be
operated, the several advantages of so doing will more
than repay the trouble and expense of making a special
place for the incubator.

There is practical unanimity of opinion as to the best
kind of room for incubators. A " cellar" about half

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

An Incubator Cellar, Banked to Eaves.

under ground provides most economically the conditions
most favorable to the control of temperature, and to keep-
ing the incubators in operation as far as possible from the
effects of atmospheric changes or other external influences
which might affect incubation.

Two illustrations of incubator cellars representing com-
mon plans are given herewith. These give external views
of the cellars. It hardly seems necessary to give a diagram
of the ground plan. In the first illustration the cellar, in
a side hill, is banked up quite the full height of the walls.
In the other, the cellar is built into a sort of natural curve
in a bank, the north and west walls being wholly below the
ground, while on the east and soifth side's the level of the
ground outside is only about two feet above the cellar floor.
Exact comparisons of the merits of the different cellars, as
affected by the differences in construction, would be diffi-

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

39

Incubator Cellar in Curve of a Bank.

cult, if not impossible. Probably, neither in case of the
two cellars illustrated, nor in that of most of many others
which, like them in general, but differing in slight particu-
lars, might be illustrated, was there any careful and expert
study and decision of the possible effects of slight devia-
tions from other plans. As in all kinds of buildings, many
minor features depend upon an undemonstrated idea, or
even a mere whim of the builder, and no marked influ-
ence either for good or bad is traceable to these features.

The advantage of a room partly underground is that the
temperature in it changes slowly and rarely reaches the
extremes of either heat or cold which may prevail outside.
It can make little material difference in this respect,
whether the walls are banked half way up or a little more,
or not evenly banked all around — provided there is not a
large wall surface close to the incubators so exposed to

40 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

external heat and cold that its heating and cooling would
affect the temperature about the machines. In the greater
number of incubator cellars made where the ground is
level or nearly so, the cellar is of such depth and the wall
outside banked to such height that all wall surface adja-
cent to incubators is well protected outside. This leaves
about two or two and a half feet of wall above the ground,
an ample space for windows large enough for both light
and ventilation. When a cellar is mostly below ground it
is more difficult to ventilate it properly.

The reader may have noticed that in the second illustra-
tion the roof is high, leaving room for a loft with quite a
good sized door above the line of the eaves. While in a
small cellar where but few machines were run, this feature
might not be of great importance, in a large cellar where
many machines are operated, such a roomy loft helps the
circulation of air in the cellar and so improves the ventila-
tion both in the room and in the machines.

In determining the dimensions of his incubator cellar the
poultry keeper should consider the shape as well as the
number of the machines to be used in it. This is of
importance even in case of a small cellar in which two
rows of machines are to be placed, one along each side
wall, because in such cases the limited space does not
admit of such variation in the placing of the incubators,
arid sometimes a foot more one way or the other would
mean a capacity of two more machines, or ample room
instead of an insufficient passage between the rows of
machines.

Before leaving the subject of incubator cellars it will be
in place to say a little more about running machines else-

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. ^

where. It has sometimes been claimed by manufacturers
that certain machines could be run as well in an outbuild-
ing as in a cellar, and this of course was a strong point in
favor of such machines with those who did not want to
put the machine in the house cellar or make a cellar espe-
cially for it. The facts about this matter as I have been
able to get them from persons who are running machines
entirely above ground, as well as from those who have
tried machines in cellars and in buildings above ground
simultaneously, are these : In a moderate and equable
climate the room above ground may give as good results
in general and without more labor than the cellar. In any
place where considerable and sudden changes of tempera-
ture are frequent, the machines above ground require much
closer attention and constant watching to guard against
variations in the temperature of the egg chamber corre-
sponding with the changes taking place outside.

26. Pipe Brooder Houses. — To attempt even a brief
description of the many plans of pipe brooder houses that
are now in use, and to present even in outline the many
theories that have been more or less thoughtfully worked
into them, would require a volume several times the size of
this devoted exclusively to that one part of our subject.
There would, however, be no great advantage in such a
presentation of this subject. All the thought and study
and experiment of many men, through many years, has
made little difference in the houses. I think we may say
no essential difference in principal features. They differ
most in minor points, and these can be indicated in course
of an account of one plan, or as supplementary to it, just
as well as by giving full descriptions of many houses,

42

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

repeating in each the descriptions of similar features. I
will therefore describe first a brooder house which is one
of the best models I have seen. In fact, in the ten years
or more since it was first built the house has several times
been remodeled, and in its present form combines the
results of years of experiment supplemented by lessons
from the experience of many other operators of brooder
houses.

If the reader will take a glance at the cross section
in the cut below, at the ground plan on page 43,

Cross Section of Brooder House,

At Lone Oak Poultry Farm, Reading, Mass.

and the view of a part of the exterior of the house on
page 47, before I begin to explain the plan of the house
and the reasons for its proportions, dimensions, and special
features, he will better understand the allusions to each cut
as there is occasion to refer to it in describing the house.

The house is low — only 3 -ft. high from the foundation
to the plate on the front or south side, with the apex of
thereof only 5 ft. from the level of the pen floors. The
floor of the passage in the rear of the pens is excavated to
a depth of 2 ft. This arrangement reduces the amount of
cubic space in the house, while still giving the operator

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

43-

t

\

K
C

5 '

\

i

1

\ *

L.

/ *

1

<o

"5

/ f *

r.

„

( %

1

/

•a

c

\

0

f

\

/

\

c,

\

•

plenty of head room where he

has to do his work, and at the

same time makes his work

easier, because the pen floors

being at the height of the knee

or a little above, he is saved

a great deal of stooping, an

item of economy in labor that

does not amount to much in

caring for a few brooders, but

$ means a great deal where many

*2 hundreds or a few thousands

c of chicks are grown artificially.

•

*„ The width of the house is-
I 1 4 ft., the length of each pen
% being 10 -ft., and the inside*
1 width of the walk 3 ft. 9 in,
jt Each pen is 5 ft. wide, and is
® lighted by a half window (6--
\ lights- 9 x 12) in the middle of
< the front of pen. At the side-
of1 this window, as shown im
the picture of the exterior of
the house, is the small open-
ing giving the chicks access
to the yard connecting withi
each pen. An inclined plat-
form with strips of lath tacked:
across it to give the chicks
foothold, extends in front of
the house- the full width of each*

^4 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

.pen, thus making it impossible for chicks to miss the way
back to the brooder.

To support the roof and carry the partitions between the
pens there are two upright pieces of 2 x 3 inch scantling
;for each partition, one at the passage, going from the floor
of the passage to the apex of the roof, and one a little for-
ward of the middle of the house, which goes from the floor
of the pens to the roof ; a few inches difference in the
iposition of this upright, either backward or forward, would
make no difference. The partitions between the pens are
•<of solid boards two feet high. The 8 in. board extending
£rom the passage half way forward is not a part of the
partition, but a board used to place across the pen to keep
•the chicks close to the pipes when first put into the brood-
ers. The two cleats a little forward of the short upright
indicate the position of this board when in use. When not
in use it is kept in the position shown in the diagram. An
•opening with cover swinging on a screw at the top is used
ito pass the chicks from pen to pen when that is desired.
In some houses the partitions between the pens are carried
higher with wire netting, but most operators would rather
let the chicks mix a little as they get older than put in full
partitions which, in a measure, interfere with such parts of
the work as cannot-be done from the passage, as cleaning
the pen floors, etc.

The partition between pens and passage consists of two
doors, light frames covered with inch mesh wire netting
for each pen. The bottom edge of the door is on a level
with the floors of the pen, the top edge with the top of the .
partition between the pens. The 2 x 3 in. upright at the
passage end of each partition being set with the 2 in. face

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 45

to the passage, this is faced with a strip of i x 3 in. stuf£
to which the doors are hung with spring hinges. Midway
between each two uprights at the passage is another 1x5
in. piece against which these doors or gates shut, and up-
the center of this strip reinforcing it and making a smooth-
finish where the doors meet is a strip i in. square. A
little below the level of the pen floors is a 2 x 6 in. strip
resting on brackets of the same, extending the whole length-
of the pens to make a step for convenient entrance to the*
pens when it is necessary to go into them.

The floor of the pens is of cement, and the front wall'
and ceiling are plastered. The north wall would also haver
been plastered, but having been ceiled with boards when-
the house was first built it was not necessary to alter thaU
The house was used for years with no ceiling overhead,
and with a single wall in front, that being considered all'
that was necessary when individual brooders were used in
a part of it, and the pipes were boxed up, making art
enclosed brooder in each pen.

In the drawing on page 43 I have indicated ther
heater pit in the middle of the house, though as a matter
of fact in this house, used for a time as a combination
house, there are two heater pits and two small heaters, oner
for each half of the house. When provision is made in
the plan for piping the entire house, the common way is to-
have the heater pit in the center, and have one, and some-
times two, large heaters in it, either one of sufficient capa-
city to heat the whole house under any ordinary conditions^
Only one heater is used at a time, the second being reserved
for such emergencies as an extremely low temperature or
the break down of the other heater.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

The heating arrangement need not be described in detail,
jfor one who knows enough of plumbing to put in a heater
himself does not need it, and one who has no practical
knowledge of or skill in work of that kind could not do it
by the specifications of an expert plumber, to say nothing
of those of one — like the writer — whose knowledge of the
subject goes no further than a fair comprehension of the
•theory and method applied. Heaters of various makes are

Partition Between Pens and Walk in Brooder House,

At Lone Oak Poultry Farm,

to be had. As far as I can learn there is not a great deal
of difference in. them, and any practical plumber with
experience in fitting dwellings, shops and factories with
hot water heaters can do the piping satisfactorily when
shown the method of applying the heat, and told what is
required.

The position of the pipes wdth reference to the other
jarrangemeats of the house is indicated in the cross sectional
diagram on page 42. There are two sets of four pipes

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 47

each. Of each set two are flow and two return pipes,
there being thus a constant circulation of water through
them, and if the heater is of sufficient capacity an almost
uniform temperature throughout the pipes. The pipes are
not placed one above the other as is usual when plain pipes
are used and attached to the walls in shops and factories,
but are on the same level and 8 inches from the floors of

View of Part of Exterior of Brooder House,

At Lone Oak Poultry Farm.

the pens. As indicated in the cut, a section of the bottom
board in each partition is cut out to receive them, and
after they are in position is carefully replaced.

In many houses the distance of the pipes from the floor
varies, say from 4 or 5 inches in the pens near the heater
to 8 or 10 inches at the end of the house. The object of
this is to have the height of the pipes from the floor vary
to suit chicks of different ages and sizes. In other houses
as in this the same object is gained in another way. The
pipes are on a level, while the floor being of earth or sand,

48 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

or as in the case of cement covered with several inches of
sand, can be raised or lowered to give any required dis-
tance between the pipes and the floor within the limits
fixed in the construction of the house. This of course
does not necessitate the addition or removal of sand from
the pen whenever a change in the level of the floor under
the pipes is desired. All that is required is to heap the
sand under the pipes for small chicks, and rake it away as
the chicks grow larger. A distinct advantage claimed for
this way of arranging for small chicks is that with several
inches of sand under the pipes, wrhen that sand is heated
through it retains the heat, and so the chicks are furnished
both top and bottom heat.

27. Individual Brooders in Long Houses. — A

house such as has just been described for pipe brooders is
often used with individual indoor brooders. Many dif-
ferent arrangements of individual inside brooders are
made. The entire floor may be on one level, the brooders
placed three or four feet from the rear wall, just enough to
leave a passage behind them, and far -enough apart to give
the required width to the pens in front of them, the dis-
tance, of course, varying according to the size of the
brooder. Sometimes the arrangement is practically as
just described, except that the passage back of the brooders
is excavated as in the pipe brooder house described in the
preceding section, and again the floor is excavated to the
line between the brooders and the pens, that the brooders
may be set enough lower than the pens to bring the floor
of the hover on a level with the pen floors, and so avoid
the use of an inclined runway to be traversed by the chicks
in going back and forth between the hover and the pen.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 49

Another plan which seemed to please, for at least a time,,
the few who used it, but has never found favor generally,,
was to elevate the brooders two feet or more from the
floor and build small pens, practically boxes, on the same
level for the chicks to run in, there being passage room in
the front of the house as well as in the rear. This was
only used in "nursery" brooder houses for very young;
chicks.

Individual brooders have not, as a rule, been used on
large plants, except as "nursery" brooders in which the
chicks were put when taken from the incubators, and kept
only for the few weeks when they were most dependent
upon artificial heat maintained at a nearly uniform and
relatively high temperature. On some large plants an
entire building is used in this way as a nursery brooder
house. More frequently one wing of a long brooder house
is used as a u nursery " with individual brooders, while the
other wing has pipe brooders, and into this the chicks are
put as soon as they are able to stand lower temperatures
and wider fluctuations of temperature. For some years
this arrangement was vefy popular, and though it is still
perhaps more common to find it than the exclusive pipe
system, the latter as now generally put in with ample
heating capacity and electric regulating attachment seems
to give better satisfaction.

28. Individual Brooders in Small Houses. — For

single pen brooder houses, and for houses of only a few
pens, individual indoor brooders are very generally used.
A common practice is to use an indoor brooder in a large
coop or small house, from which the brooder can be
removed when the chicks no longer need it. This arrange-

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

Brooder and Colony House.

ment is a favorite one with growers who hatch in the latter
part of winter and early spring, as by that time the dis-
comforts of caring for chicks in many separate houses are
small as compared with what they are through early and
midwinter, and the chicks need not be moved until
marketed or put into winter quarters. While, when buy-
ing brooders to use in this way, the indoor style is pre-
ferred as costing less and suiting the conditions of a
substantially built coop or house better, it is sometimes
advisable when a brooder is to be used under cover in a
space so large or airy that the surplus heat from the
brooder would have little effect on the temperature of the
place, to use an outdoor brooder, which provides a space
intermediate in temperature between the hover space and
the apartment in which the brooder is placed.

29. Outdoor Brooders. — It is only under exceptional
conditions, such as mentioned at the close of the preceding

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 51

paragraph, or because he has the brooders and wishes to
make such use of them as he can, that the poultry man
growing market poultry on a considerable scale uses out-
door brooders ; but by many who grow a few chickens for
market the outdoor brooder is preferred, and, in many
instances is undoubtedly the most satisfactory and econom-
ical brooding arrangement. Thus one growing only a
few roasters, hatching them early in the fall, and at that
time requiring all his coops and buildings for other pur-
poses, would be likely to conclude that outdoor brooders
would just suit his circumstances, conditions generally
being favorable to using them without inconvenience, dis-
comfort, or special risk, while the chicks would be ready
to go into other quarters by the time winter set in. For a
few spring chicks, too, the outdoor brooder often comes
in handier than any other arrangement, and I have known
growers getting out a good many early chickens use out-
door brooders exclusively, though when the number
required goes above fifteen or twenty the grower is apt to
begin to find the care of them too burdensome, for it is
generally conceded that the isolated and unprotected outdoor
brooder is most likely to take fire, and therefore requires
more careful attention than brooders in well built houses or
coops.

30. Houses for Growing Stock We have to con-
sider these in connection with roasters only, broilers almost
invariably going to market right from the brooder.
Several styles of these houses are shown in the accompany-
ing cuts. The cut on page 52 shows a building on one of
the large roaster farms into which chicks are put when
first taken from the pipe brooder houses. Sometimes

BROILERS AND ROASTERS,

Long Brooder and Stock House.

when the accommodations of the pipe brooder house are
insufficient, individual brooders are put in this house, and
chicks removed to it several weeks before they are ready to
do without artificial heat. The unevenness of results in
hatching makes it quite necessary to have on any large
plant some buildings which can be used for either small or
weaned chicks, as desired, otherwise in a season of more
than average good hatches the grower may easily find his
very success in hatching a burden to him because of lack
of suitable facilities for taking care of the chicks as they
come.

For winter use, and until the chicks are well past danger
from all the common ills of young poultry, houses in which
several hundred can be kept are usually found more con-
venient. For spring and summer use, and for well grown
chicks at any season, the South Shore growers use small
colony houses of such styles as are shown on pages 50 and

BROILERS AND ROASTERS

53

53. By those who had seen poultry kept only by the rules
in general use, accounts of what was done with these small
colony houses were long regarded with suspicion. A
description of the way they are used, and explanation of
some things about them not clear to those who have neither
used or seen them in use, is more appropriate to the chap-
ter on the general care of roasters, and will be found there.
For the present it is sufficient to say that a number of these
small houses, or of buildings of not much greater capacity,
is to be regarded as a necessary part of the equipment of a
plant where roasters are to be grown economically. The
houses may vary much in design, according to the whim
of the builder or the possibilities of the material to be used

Colony House, 6x8 ft. Used for Fifty Roasting Chicken*.

54 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

I think the smallest I have seen were six by eight feet on
the ground, and these were used for colonies of fifty chicks
from nearly half grown to full grown in size.

31 . Feed and Cook House. — Whether a special build-
ing is to be used for these purposes, is a question to be
decided according to the circumstances in each case. Often
it is more convenient to use a part of another building for
a feed storage and cook room. One end of a brooder
house may be appropriated for the purpose, or a room
built over the incubator cellar or in connection with it.
When supplies are bought as used, only a few days' or
weeks' supply being kept on hand, large space is not
required. On some quite large plants sheds having onl}
a hundred to a hundred and fifty square feet of floor space
are found amply large for cooking and for such supplies of
stuffs to be cooked as are kept on hand, while other sup-
plies are kept in, any suitable and convenient place. As
the reader will infer from such a statement, the successful
plant of today is generally one that has grown slowly from
small beginnings, and many of its appointments are of a
makeshift character, a fact in no way counting against
them, provided they answer their purpose as well as most
of them do. On some of the plants of more pretentious
beginnings, and on some of the long established farms that
have had to replace their original buildings, commodious
and well appointed buildings for storage, cooking, cutting
hay, vegetables and bone, buildings in fact which provide
for everything not included in the stock buildings are to be
found, but the requirements for such buildings are so vari-
ous that it would not be profitable to devote space to them
in a small book of this class. Their dimensions, arrange-

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 55

ment and equipment are according to the individual ideas
and needs of the proprietor, and so one rarely finds the
similarity in them that is found in buildings in which poul-
try is kept.

32. Poultry Killing and Packing Room. — Unless
the product is to be sold alive there should be a small
building or a room set apart to be used for killing, dress-
ing, cooling and packing poultry for shipment. From the
general practice in large poultry producing sections as weB
as from what I learn from market poultrymen in many
places, I think that producers near the large markets gen-
erally find it more to their advantage to sell their poultry
alive than to dress it themselves. That point, however, is
one that each should decide for himself after having looked
into it thoroughly, and of course, added the cost per pound
to him of marketing his own poultry to the price he can
obtain for it alive. In many places -not having such divi-
sion of labor in the handling of market poultry from the
breeding stock to the table, and such careful grading of
table poultry according to quality as is found in the local-
ities adjacent to the best markets, it is undoubtedly better
for the grower to dress his own poultry. In that case it is
economy to have a special place for this work, and to have
its few simple appointments conveniently arranged. As
these will be referred to in the chapter devoted to market-
ing, nothing more specific need be said of them here.

33. Miscellaneous Appliances. — The really neces-
sary small furnishings for the broiler or roaster plant are
few in number, inexpensive ; some of them can be made at
home at almost nominal cost, and cheap articles that will
answer the purpose are always procurable. If one wishes.

56 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

to economize in this direction he can make his own feed-
ing troughs and boxes, and even convert articles usually
thrown away into serviceable food or water vessels. Those
who want articles specially made with reference to the uses
for which they are designed, and in finish appropriate for
a well appointed plant, will find them in great variety in
the poultry supply stores. Of things really essential we
might say that after the plain food and water vessels there
are none, but one who wants all the *' modern conven-
iences" will find them in the supply store or listed in its
catalogue.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

57

CHAPTER V.

Hatching and Brooding.

34. About Eggs for Hatching. — The grower of
broilers generally begins operations about the time winter
sets in. He may have from his own yards a part of the
eggs he needs. If he is running many incubators he is
likely to have to buy a large proportion of the eggs he
wants at this season, and if he is wise he will be as par-
ticular as possible about where the eggs he buys come
from. Once in a while a man will have very good hatches
from eggs picked up at a store or commission house, but
as a rule operators of incubators find hatches at this season
none too good even after they have taken every precaution
in their power to get good hatchable eggs. The most sat-
isfactory way, when eggs have to be bought, is to make
arrangements with poultry keepers in the vicinity who
have laying at that time flocks of the general type of fowl
from which it is desired to hatch, to take their eggs every
few days. It is not always possible to get all the eggs one
can use in this way, but one who continues in the business
can within a few years work up a connection of this kind

58 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

through which he is practically assured of all the eggs he
can use. If local eggs to the number desired are not
obtainable one must buy where he can. As the demand
for eggs for winter chickens increases more and more,
poultry keepers are preparing to supply it, and advertising
eggs at this season, though the supply is and doubtless will
long continue to be very limited in comparison with the
offerings after midwinter. It is a good plan when buying
eggs in large quantities for incubators to make sure that
they are from desirable stock, and if the yards from which
one proposes to secure eggs are at all accessible it is worth
while to visit them for that purpose. A little time and a
dollar or two, or even more, spent in this way, would
prove to be wise expenditure, if it saved one from buying
some thousands of eggs that might hatch well, but not
chicks that would make satisfactory poultry.

35. Operating the Incubators. — As with every incu-
bator sold goes a book of instructions as to the running of
that particular make of machine, it would be superfluous
to go into full details in a book of this kind, and I give as
likely to be more useful to the reader a few general state-
ments in regard to the management of incubators on plants-
where many are in operation. Some of the things I have
to say may be found also in books of instructions, but my
observation has been that many amateur operators are but
little impressed by the general advices and cautions in lists
of instructions, but having informed themselves on the few
specific rules which they have to know in order to run the
machine at all, pay no attention to the rest.

Perhaps the most common causes of failures with incuba-
tors are carelessness and neglect in attending to the

^BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 59.

machines, — not habitual carelessness and neglect, but
occasional. Some manufacturers may be to some degree
responsible for the general impression among those who
have not learned differently through experience, that an
incubator can go for twenty-four hours or more without
attention. True, it may be left that long without anything
going wrong, but the experienced operator learns to take
no chances of that kind. Twice a day he goes through
the routine work of caring for his machines, but he keeps
an eye on them at convenient intervals between times as
well ; for some little thing may go wrong with a machine
at any time, and the loss of an incubator full of eggs is
quite an item.

After giving his machine or machines such regular
attention as they require, and such incidental oversight as
is possible — within reason — the operator should study
his machines. He should learn how they behave under
different conditions, and how slight changes in moisture,,
ventilation, etc., affect them in operation, and also how
variations, whether accidental or intentional, seem to affect
the chicks in after life. The operator has to learn to oper-
ate machines, and each machine, under the particular con-
dition to which his machines are subject, and in doing this
he is in effect learning the precise application of the gen-
eral rules which the manufacturer has given for operating
his incubators — that is, he is cultivating judgment in apply-
ing his instructions.

It will greatly help a novice in incubation to draw right
conclusions from his experiences in artificial incubation, if
he can arrange to have one or two hens incubating simul-
taneously with some of his machines and on some of the-

60 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

same eggs. This gives him more of an opportunity to
check his work with the incubator. He can compare the
,air cells in the eggs in his incubator with those at the same
stage of incubation under the hens, and so judge better
about his ventilation and moisture. In case of failure or a
very poor hatch with a machine results from the eggs under
hens may indicate whether the trouble is in the eggs or in
operation.

The ventilation of the cellar or other apartment in which
incubators are run must be such that there will be com-
paratively little odor from the lamps. A bad smelling
incubator room means impure air in the room, and that
means a lack of pure air and oxygen in the egg chambers.
Probably the best mode of ventilation is through windows
high up in the walls, having double sash, the outside one
being hinged at the top, and the inside one from the
bottom. The sash can then be opened as much or as little
.as is required. Their position with reference to each other
.sends the current of air entering the window upward and
away from the machines, so that the cool air introduced is
warmed before it reaches them. Another application of
the same idea in ventilation is sometimes made in the doors
which, as a rule, are double. A few large holes are bored
near the top or bottom, it makes no difference which, of
the outside door, and a corresponding number at the other
extremity of the inside door, thus providing for a slow
movement of air through these holes and the space between
the doors. Slides can be arranged to close a part or all of
the holes. With this provision in the door, and with one
•or more windows as described above, proper ventilation is
a matter of judgment in the adjustment of the openings.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 6r

There must be a circulation of air, but not so rapid as to
reduce the inside temperature so that the machines will be
affected. A good rule to observe to secure this is to
ventilate as little as is necessary to keep down the odor.

36. Running the Brooders. — The commonest faults
in the construction and operation of pipe brooder houses-
have been insufficient heating capacity and lack of air
under the hovers. To the first of these causes responsibil-
ity for the other maybe assigned. Operators tried, and
many still try, to get along with the smallest possible
heater, and to economize heat by closely covering the space
under the pipes. Many of the most successful growers
today either use no covering on the pipes, or use it only
for a few days when the chicks are very small. With
heaters of greater capacity they can make the space under
the pipes as warm as need be without shutting it up
closely. Thus the chicks are kept warm, and at the same
time have abundance of air. The electric regulators in use
are placed under the pipes and connect by wires with a
damper in the heater, and also with an alarm bell within
hearing of the operator at his house. -Within a range of a
few degrees the regulator controls- the damper on the
heater, opening or closing it as the temperature falls or
rises. Should a variation beyond its power to control
occur, it gives notice to the operator through the alarm
bell. It would be difficult to overestimate the practical
value of this little mechanism to growers of broilers and
roasters, relieving them of both work and worry in con-
nection with the maintaining of the temperature of their
brooders.

It is of the utmost importance that the chicks, during;

<62 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

;the first few days, be kept warm and not allowed to get
far away from the heat. To insure these conditions it is
customary to use at first a board, as described on page 44,
io confine them to the space under and near the pipes.
For the first few days warmth is more essential to them
than anything else but air, and the most approved practice
is to keep the chicks quite closely in the brooder, and keep
the temperature at 90° to 95°, rather high than low.
The action of the chickens toward the heat is sometimes
<cited as a reliable index of the proper conditions. While
it probably is so to an experienced operator, a novice's
lack of familiarity with the habits of chickens, and inex-
perience in observing them, is apt to lead him to make
•serious errors in judging conditions this way, and it is
generally safer for him to go by the thermometer for tem-
perature. Under the system we are now considering,
.there is little danger of the chicks not getting enough air.

Another point to be noted in connection with this system
is that there being a free circulation of air all about the
<chicks the chick capacity of the space is very much
increased, especially for the very young chicks. Where
'.the pipes are closed, and the temperature outside the hovers
much below what is required, it is, of course, more diffi-
cult to maintain an even temperature under the hover, and
it was this difficulty that led to so general use of individ-
ual u nursery " brooders for the smallest chicks.

In a general way the care of the individual brooder is
•.much like the care of the incubator. By far the greater
:number in use are hot air brooders, heated by lamps or
*' stoves" which require attention as often as incubators,
so high a temperature is to be maintained under the

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 63

hover as in the egg chamber, but as the chicks require
much more air than the eggs, the problem of ventilation
is, if anything, more difficult, and it is the difficulty of
supplying fresh air as required, without reducing too much
the temperature under the hovers that makes it generally
necessary in practice to reduce the number of chicks in the
brooders so much below the manufacturers' rated capacity.
After an approximately correct temperature, (about 95° at
the start, gradually reduced to between 80° and 85° by the
time the chicks are three weeks old), the most important
thing to observe is the purity of the air in the hover, and
the operator should bear in mind that in securing this he
must consider the chicks, as well as the lamp, as possible
sources of noxious gases, and keep their number down
to the safety point.

As the chicks grow, whether under pipes or in hot air
brooders, there is less and less need of artificial heat, and
the danger of chicks* in close hovers becoming overheated
through the combination of heat from their bodies, and
from the lamp or stove, increases so much that the smaller
the early losses in a batch of chicks, the greater the danger
of things suddenly going wrong with chicks supposed to
be well past the dangers of early chickhood. The surest
preventive of troubles at this period is to avoid overcrowd-
ing. Whatever mode of brooding is used, brooder chicks
require more care than those hatched and brooded naturally.
The larger numbers kept together alter conditions, while
the fact that the brooder, however good, cannot be to the
chick all that the natural mother is, makes it more neces-
sary that the keeper should exercise close watchfulness
and see that everything is right and kept right. To give

64 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

one or two illustrations : A brood of a dozen chicks run-
ning with a hen may have their drinking water in an open
saucer, and paddle through it, wetting themselves a little,
but fifty or a hundred chicks with access to an open water
vessel will soon have themselves and their surroundings in
sorry condition, and so many bedraggled brooder chicks,
will hardly dry off without some of their number being the
worse for the wetting, while it is no uncommon thing in
such a case for chicks (and even ducks) to be so exhausted
in the dabbling that they are run over and killed by the
rest.

In feeding, too, there must be more care. The average
hen hatched and brooded chick will- thrive in spite of
irregularities in feeding which would stunt and perhaps-
eventually kill the average brooder chick. When all goes-
right by the artificial methods, results should be identical
with the best results by natural methods, but the operator
of incubators and brooders who keeps things right so gener-
ally that his average results are as good or better than
average results by the other method, does it by combining
good judgment with unfailing vigilance.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 65

CHAPTER VI.

Feeding Systems — Foods and Feeding.

37. The Two Feeding Systems. — According to
their preference in methods of feeding, poultry keepers
today may be roughly divided into two classes — one com-
prising the advocates of dry feeding^ the other the advo-
cates of wet feeding". The line of division between these
classes is not as sharply defined in practice as would
appear from the statements of exponents of the different
methods. It seems to me that the attitude of representa-
tives of the two schools toward practical feeding, and
toward each other, is best expressed by stating that they
differ more in their philosophy of feeding than otherwise.
The advocate of wet feeding regards a judicious alternation
of wet or soft food and hard grain as generally productive
of best results. The advocate of dry feeding considers the
use of wet foods dangerous, or at least involving greater
risks than the use of all dry rations of grain, with what
' ' wetting " is required supplied in pure water and succu-
lent green food.

66 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

Anything like an extended or exhaustive discussion of
the numerous points which must be covered in a compre-
hensive treatment of the question is impossible in the
limited space allotted to the subject in this book ; but it is
in order to observe that whatever the first preference of a
poultryman, as based on theory or report of results, may
be, he must ultimately come to the method which is most
in harmony with his conditions, and with the other parts
of his system of poultry keeping. So it is well for him
not to feel too much faith in any one system or method,
for there is none that will insure good results under any
and all conditions, and in feeding, as in other things, one
must learn to adapt his methods to his circumstances,
changing them or not, as conditions and results seem to
require.

38. Mash Systems of Feeding. — Under this head-
ing I would include all methods in which wetted, scalded,
steamed, or baked ground feed stuffs, or mixtures of the
same, are used as the whole or a part of the ration.

A ration of all wet, raw, or partly cooked foods, or of
cooked foods soaked before being fed, should never be
used in connection with artificial brooding. Such a ration
is an unsafe one, except for chicks roaming with hens on
a range where seeds of various kinds are abundant. In
other words, it is safe to feed an all wet diet only when
what is given the chicks forms only a part of their ration,
and what they secure by foraging counteracts the bad
tendencies of too much wet food. The risks of an all wet
ration are greater when chicks are brooded artificially,
because bad effects of errors of temperature have the same
tendency as an excess of wet food — i. e., to cause bowel

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 67

trouble — hence the two things together make a double risk.
I do not mean by this that it is not possible to have chicks
thrive on such a ration. Good broilers have been grown
that way ; but the risks are greater than when a safer
method of feeding is used.

A ration of all cooked food may be used for broilers
with good results, and is often used for young chicks up to
broiler size, though they are to be kept for roasters or for
stock purposes, but it is questionable whether such a
method, used exclusively for the first few months, is advis-
able for chicks that are not to be marketed as broilers.
The usual effect of an all soft grain food ration, with some
green stuff, meat, and grit, of course, provided, is to make
a temporary rapid growth, while the digestive organs used
for soft foods only, and so not developed in proportion to
the general development, become inadequate to the work
required of them later in life, when- economy imperatively
requires the use of a nearly all hard grain ration. For a
few months chicks may be fed exclusively on a steam
cooked mash, or baked cake, and some growers have
thought that method preferable.

The more common method has been to alternate soft and
hard feeds, or if not feeding them in regular alternation to
make about half the day's ration soft and the rest hard.
Thus one very successful grower used to start his chicks
on stale bread crumbs fed alternately moistened with milk
and dry, practically a balancing of tendencies toward loose-
ness and costiveness. Others have used baked cakes or
steamed mash or scalded mash. The baked " johnnycake,"
whether of corn meal alone or of a mixture of mill stuffs
and the various kinds of mashes, are safe or unsafe foods

68 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

as a steady diet according to their consistency. Their
composition has more effect on growth than on health. A
cake that is heavy and doughy, or a soggy mash, will
quickly put a good proportion of the chicks in brooders to
which it is fed to the bad, while a food of like composition
but well prepared would give very good results. Variety
in a ration generally gives better growth than a monoto-
nous ration, especially if the ration contains but a single
article, yet it is possible to get better results from a well
made all corn meal cake than from a poorly made ration
much better balanced in its constituents. Such facts as
these will account for some of the differences in method,
and radical differences of opinion as to values of methods
which puzzle the beginner when he discovers how even
successful poultry men will disagree in matters of this kind.

Baking cakes is too much work to allow of the use of
much baked cake where large numbers of chicks are
handled. For a few chicks it may be the most satisfac-
tory way, particularly when the chicks are small and
require but a little food at a time. Under such conditions
a baked cake comes in very handy, as it will keep for days
when a mash would get heavy or sour or moldy. Some
large growers like to use baked cakes for their youngest
chickens, but for economy of labor it is better to have one
system for all chicks, and so when food is prepared make
one job of it.

If a cake is used it may be either of all corn meal or of
corn meal mixed with other articles. Here are some
receipts that have been given for cakes :

Add a little soda to sour milk ; stir in corn meal or corn
chop to make a stiff batter — the stiffer the better. A few

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 69

infertile eggs added improve the cake. Table scraps may
be mixed in the batter.

Grind together corn, wheat and oats, equal parts; mix
with milk, and bake.

Grind together 20 Ibs. corn, 20 Ibs. oats, 10 Ibs. barley,
add 10 Ibs. wheat bran. This makes what is known as
u excelsior meal." To make cake of this : Take one
quart sour milk or buttermilk, add a little salt and molasses,
a quart of water, a heaping teaspoonful saleratus, thicken
with the meal a little thicker than batter for corn cakes ;
bake in shallow pans.

Take i pint corn meal, i teacup bran, i teaspoon meat
meal, i raw egg, i teaspoon soda, i teacup cold water;
bake two hours.

Take 3 qts. corn meal, i qt. wheat middlings, i cup
meat meal ; mix with water or skim milk to which has been
added 4 tablespoons vinegar, 2 teaspoons soda.

To make a good mash :

Make a stiff thick mush of corn meal stirred into boiling
water. Into this stir the other ingredients used.

A very satisfactory mash is made by adding bran alone
to the mush, the proportion of this mash should be about
half and half corn meal and bran, and when finished should
be light and crumbly, but not mealy — that is, a spoonful
or handful of it should have a tendency to crumble like a
lump of earth, the particles of which without being wet

y0 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

enough or firm enough to retain their form, still stick
together somewhat, crumble — but do not separate as
the particles of dry earth, ashes, sand, or meal do. It is
hard to give in words an idea of the consistency of a mash.
Describing consistency is much like describing a color or a
sound.

There is this much to be said about the mash though :
If one does not get good results from mash feeding it is
because his mash is inappropriate — in some way faulty,
and if after several changes he still fails to make a mash
that gives him good results, I would certainly advise him
to try another method, for there is no one method better
than others for all people under all circumstances, but the
best method for each is the method that gives him best
results.

For a mash with more variety in it than that given
above, take corn meal and ground oats, equal parts, scald
or cook in a mash, then stir in as much bran as it will take,
and add five to ten per cent of meat scrap or meat meal.
For small chicks it is better to go not much over five per
cent of meat, but as they approach market age the quantity
may be increased.

If mostly mash is fed make the mash as dry as it can be
mixed, and feed it either warm as first mixed or before it
becomes cold. As a rule it is not advisable to feed a cold
mash to small chicks in cold weather, for it is apt to be
heavy and have a tendency to cause indigestion. Aim to
mix up no more mash at one time than can be used before
it becomes cold. (Cover up and set in a warm place, it
will keep warm and nice for a day) ; but if a mash does

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. ji

become cold and soggy warm it up, and either mix with
some fresh mash or add dry bran and meal to improve its
consistency.

It is not possible to give comprehensive directions about
mash making and mending. All that can be done in that
way is by suggestion — giving the reader an idea of what is
possible. He must work it out for himself, just as he
works out problems of incubation and brooding, learning
by experience how to balance the ingredients to get a com-
position that the chicks will eat with relish and thrive,
upon.

. 1

39. The Dry Feed System. — Leaving out of con-
sideration, for the time, the question of relative possibili-
ties of the two systems, I think it may be positively
affirmed that far the greater number of persons growing
chicks in brooders, who have tried the two systems, find
that they get better results by dry feeding — that is, they
find that system easier to apply. It is a simpler system.
Possibly the best results in individual growth or produc-
tion, when dry feeding is practiced, are not, taking one
case with another, as good as the best results by a system
that includes the use of some soft and moist grain feeds.
My personal opinion is that they are not, but the question
is one not easily demonstrated conclusively, and therefore
better considered an open question. But it seems quite
plain that in the majority of cases losses of chicks have
been much smaller by the dry feed method. As every lost
chick has to be paid for out of the price received for those
grown to marketable age before one begins to figure net
proceeds, it is clear that the system giving the least losses
will, in many cases, be the more satisfactory system, and

•J2 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

the one that, in a majority of cases, will give the greater
profit, though it may not give the best obtainable quality
in individuals.

Is dry feeding, then, to be recommended as the best
system for all beginners ? Not at all. A good proportion
— though not the majority — of beginners will get as good
or better results from the start by other methods. The
best way for the beginner is to adopt the method he thinks
he would prefer, or that most convenient to use, and follow
it until he has a good reason for modifying or changing it.
No one can tell in advance which system will suit him
best, and while the dry feed method is generally safer for
novices because it operates as a check on some of the other
errors they are most likely to fall into, in case they escape
these other errors the features of the dry feed system which
made it good under other circumstances may be the very
ones that will make it unsuitable for them. The feeding
system must fit the other parts of one's poultry keeping,
and a poultry keeper would be very foolish who would try
to make his methods conform to any well defined system
after it became apparent to him that in his case modifica-
tion of either system, or a combination of the two, would
work to better advantage. We must not lose sight of the
fact that our division of feeding methods into two general
systems is an arbitrary distinction which has no practical
use beyond what can be done by thus dividing the subject
when discussing it to make the whole question of feeding
clearer to the beginners who too generally assume that
there is one best method, and all others are either bad or
inferior to it.

40. What Is Dry Feeding? — There are various
methods of dry feeding, just as there are various methods

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 73

of feeding rations composed in whole or part of mashes or
cakes. The grains may be fed all whole or cracked, or a
part ground and mixed together, making what is some-
times called a " dry mash/' The feeding may be in
hoppers or troughs with food before the chicks for the
picking all the time, or a part of it may be scattered in
litter to induce them to take exercise.* Leaving food by
small chicks is not very generally practiced, for so many
being confined in a small space, and they being so small,
food that is easily accessible to them is very likely^to get
fouled with their droppings and with their running over it,
and in that condition much of it is wasted, or, if eaten,
becomes a menace to health. On this account the rule of
" little and often " is almost universally used for small
chickens, no matter what the food used* When the chicks
become large enough to eat out of troughs or hoppers
so constructed that they cannot foul the food in them, many
growers of both broilers and roasters keep food before them
all the time.

Probably four-fifths of all the dry fed chickens are not fed
ground grains in a dry mash. Most growers using the dry
feed system either buy the prepared mixtures of small and
cracked or broken grains for chicks or make their own
mixtures. The commercial mixtures as a rule contain a
much greater variety of grains and seeds than the home
made. Some of them also contain grit much in excess of
what is required, and low priced grains in larger propor-
tion than they should be for the price asked. Hence while
it is often assumed that the prepared food is a boon to the
poultryman who is not a judge of foods, the fact is that he
needs to use the same judgment in buying prepared mix-
tures that he does in buying straight grain products of vari-

74 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

ous kinds. Admitting that the proprietor of the mixture
with his expert judgment will often do better for the novice
than he is likely to do for himself, it is still true that the
novice pays for every service of this kind, and the sooner
he is able to dispense with such services the more eco-
nomically he will grow his poultry.

The strong point in favor of these preparations is not
that they are cheaper, or better than poultry keepers car*
make for themselves, but that they omit nothing that is
necessary, and provide for a constant variety. Too many
poultry keepers of some experience, as well as novices, fail
to provide all the things their chicks and fowls need — so
that they can have them as they need them. The manufac-
turers of prepared mixtures of various kinds take account
of this in the preparation of their goods, and so give the
poultrymen an article which makes good some common
shortcomings. This explains why so many people are
more successful with prepared foods.

There is one misapprehension about the use of prepared
foods that, in the interests of economy, ought to be removed
from any mind that harbors it. The impression is very
general that prepared foods are used exclusively by many
large growers of broilers and roasters. This is not the
case. There are many small growers using prepared foods
exclusively, but the large growers, and in fact most of those
who figure expenses closely use the prepared mixtures to
start the chicks, and as they grow older change to part
cheaper grain, generally fine cracked corn, the proportion
of corn being gradually increased until in the case of chicks
reserved for roasters they are on an almost exclusive cora
(for grain) diet when three or four months old.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 75

Now the question comes up in the mind of the reader : —
Which of the mixed foods are good ? One is generally-
safe in buying a mixture sold by a reliable supply house.
The best of them sometimes make mistakes, but a house-
that has a reputation to maintain will make its mistakes-
right, and .the quality of its goods will be on the whole
very uniform. There are a number of exclusively adver-
tised and well known brands of chick feed and scratching^
feed that a poultryman can buy with the same confidence
with which he buys a reliable brand of flour. Whether
that particular brand will suit him as well as another canr
only be ascertained by trial, but he can rely on its contain-
ing nothing in itself harmful. The same with the mixtures-
frequently made and sold locally. A reputable house tries to>
serve its trade well. If it makes mistakes, they are honest
mistakes, which it corrects as soon as they are pointed out.

Where then is the need of judgment on the part of the
buyer ? Right here : Suppose he gets a hold of a lot of
food of a well known brand not up to quality for that
brand, lacking, we will say, in some one of the important
items in the mixture. Trusting implicitly in the reputa-
tion of the goods, he may not notice what is lacking in this-
lot until he has occasion to look for a reason for his chicks-
not doing as well as usual. It takes time then to correct
the trouble, and the loss through check in development is-
one that cannot be made up. I emphasize such points as-
this because it cannot be too strongly impressed on the
beginner in poultry culture, that no merit in breed, feedr
or method is so sure and unchangeable that he can rely
absolutely upon it. On the contrary experience with good
fowls, foods, and methods should educate and train a poul-
tryman's judgment and make him self-reliant, and he misses*

76 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

•one of the advantages of buying good feeds if he fails to
learn from them to judge food stuffs.

The ground mixtures for chicks cannot be as freely rec-
ommended as the mixtures of cracked and broken articles.
In general they contain too large a proportion of indigest-
ible or innutritious waste which cannot be separated from
the other elements, and is very likely to cause the chicks
to eat the food less freely than is desirable, or if eaten
cause digestive and bowel troubles. Ground mixtures are
tto be bought only after careful inspection, and used always
with caution whether fed wet or dry.

41. The Feeding Systems in Practice. — Young

•chickens require no food for from twenty-four to thirty-six
hours after hatching. They can go longer without it, but
in general they are ready to eat a little bit after the first
-day. At first they eat only in very small quantities. Indeed
in feeding a brood of chicks with a hen one can hardly
notice that the hen and chicks are taking any more than the
hen would until they are several weeks old. After that the
•quantity eaten by a chick increases very rapidly. Most
people feed far too much at a time to their small chicks,
with the result that much food is soiled and wasted.

When brooder chicks are fed in pans or troughs, and
feed kept before them most of the time, they may not take
as much exercise as is needed to keep them out of mischief
and in good condition. A lot of chicks with nothing to do
often develop some troublesome vice, like cannibalism, or
standing idly around ; there being no inducement to take
•exercise, their blood circulates sluggishly, they feel cold,
and the attendant observer observes the phenomenon, often
considered as something of a mystery, of chicks huddling
together and to the heat when the thermometer indicates a

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 77-

temperature at which they ought to be comfortable, well
spread out under the pipes. A little litter on the floor and
a handful or two of grain in this for the chicks to work for
will often make a surprising change in their behavior
toward the heat. This scratching grain should be givens
even when most of the food is fed in troughs or hoppers*
The chicks will often leave the grain that is easy to get and
scratch busily for what can only be obtained by working
for it. It is the chick nature to do that way. Compulsory-
scratching is not needed for small chicks unless they have
become so sluggish that they will take no exercise until
forced to do so, but the opportunity to scratch should
always be given brooder chicks until they are to be fattened-
With abundance of food to be had without scratching they
will exercise just about enough to keep them in condition.
Many a time I have seen a brooder full of chicks cured of
a mysterious indisposition by simply giving them oppor-
tunity and slight inducement to take exercise.

It is especially necessary to look out for this when the
chicks are confined constantly or for long periods indoors.
When they get out the change from inner to outer air stim-
ulates them, the sun is a tonic, and there is variety enough
in their little lives to keep them in motion, but in the house
on dull days they want something special to do.

When chicks go " off their feed " and eat mincingly,
though there seems nothing in particular wrong, it is apt
to be because they are overfed, and nothing will bring them
out of this quicker than to let them go without feed until
they are ready to eat with appetite. If they have been fed
every two hours or so, skipping a single meal often gives^
their digestive apparatus a chance to adjust itself for a fresh
start. If food is kept before them constantly, and they da

y8 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

not seem to eat right, remove it for a few hours and they
^vill be ready to eat a good ration when it is returned to
them, and thus get back into regular habits.

How Often and How Much to Feed:

The small chick, as has been said, takes its food in
almost infinitesimal quantities at first, but it wants its meals
•often. If only what the chicks clean up within a few
minutes is given them at each feeding they will eat about
once in two hours. As they take food in larger quantities
it will be found that two hour intervals between feeds are
loo short, if the chicks are given all they will eat at each
meal. Some keep the chicks in good appetite by continu-
ing feeding at two hour intervals, but never feeding the
^chicks all they want ; others give the chicks what they will
-eat, and lengthen the intervals between feeds as much as
necessary to keep the appetite hearty. The latter way I
think the better one. It reduces labor, and it is more
natural. With broilers one will not get much beyond three
hour periods between meals, but with roasters he can soon
get on a three-meals-a-day basis.

For quantity no definite rule can be given. It is desirable
vto have the chicks eat all they can digest, and that will
vary with their digestive capacity as well as with the com-
position and quality of the food. The feeder should aim
to have a diet that will be eaten freely and digested without
inconvenience. With such a .ration, with the necessary
exercise and other accessories, there is little danger of over-
feeding, and he may be liberal to the point where waste of
food begins.

In a mixture of grains the chicks get variety in every
tneal. When for the sake of economy it is desired to feed
as much as is desirable of a cheap grain, it may either be

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. jy

made the larger part of a mixture, or may be fed separately
several times a day, the other feeds, given alternately with
it, furnishing greater variety. Cracked corn is a favorite
food with nearly all growers of market poultry for this rea-
son, and is mostly used in larger quantities than any other
one ingredient in both wet and dry feeding. At the prices
that usually obtain comparatively little wheat or other
grains is used by large growers. Those who use mashes
alternate them with cracked corn. Those who feed dry
alternate cracked corn with a more expensive mixture until
the chicks are several weeks old, and considered past " the
danger period." After that the larger growers nearly
all get down as near as possible to a diet of corn, meat
scraps and some green stuff, no more of other ground or
whole grains being used than is necessary to mix with corn
meal in cake or mash or to relieve the monotony of an all
corn grain ration. The soft roaster growers feed prac-
tically nothing but cracked corn, meat scrap, and green
food to their chickens after taking them from the brooder
houses and placing them in lots of fifty in such houses as
that illustrated on page 53, or in corresponding larger lots
in the slightly larger colony houses sometimes used.

42. Green Food. — Neither green food nor meat is
absolutely essential in the diet of young chicks. They
have often been known to grow and thrive for weeks with-
out either. But growth is generally better, the chicks
healthier, and the risks in handling them less when green
food and meat food are supplied practically from the first.
For green food there is nothing better than cabbage, which
can be fed by putting a head, leaves, stump and all in the
pen and letting the chicks pick it to pieces. There is no

8o BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

need of cutting it up for them. They can do it for them-
selves, and get good exercise while doing it. They will
clean up all but the toughest fibres of the stump and root.
After cabbage there are other foods which are sometimes
grown in boxes or frames for winter chickens. Lettuce,
wheat, oats, are all used; but such things can hardly be
produced profitably for large numbers of chicks, and the
careful grower of winter chickens will make due effort to
have an ample supply of cabbage. On land where roast-
ers are grown cabbage can be set out after the bulk of the
crop of chickens is marketed in June or July, and in an
ordinary season will have ample time to make a good crop
of inexpensive green food for the next crop of chickens.

A favorite crop with growers of both broilers and roast-
ers is winter rye. When there is little snow during the
winter the chickens can get what green food they need on
the patches of rye in the yards or near the houses, while
whatever the winter, the rye furnishes green food for the
growing roasters in spring long before grass or other green
crops are available. When dry feeding is the method
employed it is more important that the chicks get some
succulent food, and if such green foods as have been men-
tioned are not available root vegetables may be fed raw.

43. Feeding Meat. — In feeding meat to chicks being
reared artificially one must be more careful than with
chicks at liberty with hens. Under natural conditions
chicks often stand foods which soon show bad effects when
fed under artificial conditions. Meat meal of poor quality,
really not fit for anything but fertilizer, may be fed in
moderate quantities to grown fowls and to chicks with hens
without bad effects, but the grower using artificial methods

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 8 1

finds it not safe to use meat meals or scraps except such
as are of good quality, sound and sweet. A great deal of
trouble with brooder chicks is due to poor quality meat,
which the user does not suspect because he observes no
bad results from feeding it to other stock. Of green cut
bone, cut very fine, all the chicks will eat may be fed if
they get it every few days. The cut bone should not be
sour or heating.

In dry feeding the meat meal or scrap used is fed sepa-
rately, kept before the chicks all the time. In wet feeding
the prepared meat foods- are generally mixed with the cake
or mash in proportion of about five to ten per cent of the
bulk of its ingredients when dry. The proportion should
be governed in part by the quantity of mash fed during the
day. If the mash is fed only once a day ten per cent, or
even more, of most brands of prepared meat is not too
much. If two or three mashes are feel a day the amount
may either be distributed through them or fed all at one
time, the other mashes containing no meat. For rapid
forcing the amount of meat scrap may be very much
increased, but until one has had experience enough in
handling chickens to recognize bad effects of overfeeding
meat as soon as they appear he had best use small portions
of meat in the mash and give a part of the meat separately.
To be sure he might feed all meat separate, and none in
the mash, but it is nearly always found that a mash with
some meat in it is eaten with greater relish. As to the
limit of the amount of meat that can be given, I have
known growers use as much as one-fifth meat in a mash
fed several times a day. I would not advise a novice to use
so much, except perhaps for a short period before killing.

82 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

44. Drink. — Water, fresh as often as is necessary to
have it reasonably clean, is as necessary as good food.
When we speak of cleanliness in matters concerning poul-
try we always mean relatively clean. Perfect cleanliness
is practically out of the question in the poultry yard. The
poultry keeper must learn to draw the distinction between
things that have some dirt on them and things that are
dirty. Within limits he can tolerate the former, the latter
he should not have about his premises. A little of the
dust from the floor on the water, even a little excrement in
it does not constitute a serious risk, but drinking vessels
allowed to get slimy and nasty are a common cause of
trouble. Clean them as often as necessary to have the
vessel clean, (a good rinsing once a day should be enough)
but don't think it necessary to empty a vessel and put in
fresh water if a tiny bit of the droppings falls in it. That
is the kind of work that takes up so much of the time of
some poultrymen that they do not find time to do other
more necessary things.

Milk is good for chicks, whether given as a drink or
used to mix the mash. Slightly scalded milk is good to
correct a simple diarrhea. In giving it to brooder chicks
as a drink it is better to use a drinking fountain, even if
fountains are not used for water, for dabbling in milk the
chickens smear each other up and make a bad mess.
Whether milk -is given or not the chicks will want water,
and should have it.

45. Grit. — Growers of chicks using artificial methods
generally consider it of greatest importance to keep the
chicks constantly and liberally supplied with grit. Many
of them give grit before they give any food, claiming that

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 83

it is necessary. In this they are probably wrong, for it is
certain that many lots of chicks have got along very well
without grit, and I have had reports on a good many cases
where there was good reason to suspect that chicks kept
too long without food, but given grit freely, swallowed
much more grit than was good for them with the result
that the digestive apparatus became deranged at the start.
Chicks need some grit, but not more than they will take
freely when well fed. If prepared chick foods are used
for even half the ration there will not often be need of sup-
plying more grit than these contain. There is probably
none of them in which the proportion of grit is too small,
and many contain several times more than is necessary.
When chicks are fed wholly on preparations containing no
grit they should always have access to a supply of it.
Their need of it seems to depend on the food given them,
and to vary much in different chicks.

46. Charcoal. — The charcoal question is very like the
grit question. Many growers keep it before the chicks.
Some chicks thrive without it. Its properties being such
that it aids digestion and purifies the blood, it is clear that
the need of it will exist, and the beneficial effects be appar-
ent in case of chicks that have weak digestion or indiges-
tion, or poor circulation, as it would not in chicks that
were in good condition. Considering the number of suc-
cessful growers who use no charcoal, it cannot be said that
there is as much need of keeping it always before chicks,
but if chicks are not thrifty it is one of the simple things
to supply before changing foods or beginning to give
medicines.

84 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

CHAPTER Vlf.

Some General Points on Roasters.

47. Peculiarities of "South Shore" Methods.—

As the broiler goes direct from the brooder to market the
broiler growers' problems in management do not go beyond
the methods of handling chickens in brooder houses. The
grower of large roasters has to consider how best to carry
his crop — some of which was developed enough to be
sold for broilers early in the winter — to the season of
high prices in the following summer* He saves in feed
by using the lowest priced grain (corn), and in cost of
feeding by keeping food standing before the chickens all
the time. The usual way to feed these chickens is to have
in each house a trough or hopper of cracked corn, another
of beef scrap, and a pail of water. While the supply of
cabbage lasts, cabbage is given frequently ; after that the
only green food the chicks get is the rye they pick for
themselves when the snow is off the ground. As snow
rarely lies long in that locality, they are seldom long with-
out green food.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 85

To most poultry keepers the incomprehensible thing
about the methods used here is that crowding the weaned
chicks so densely in small houses does not result in losses
such as under ordinary circumstances attend crowding that
does not seem to be anything like as bad as that practiced
here. The reason is found in a very radical difference in
the way the houses are used. The ordinary way is to shut
up the houses. The method in use here is to let in plenty
of air. The house is never shut close. Either window
or door is always open, and oftener both are open. With
plenty of air the chickens, though crowded for room, get
along quite comfortably, even when a storm keeps them in
the house for several days. The system of feeding makes
the droppings quite dry, and, as a rule, the difficulty of
handling crowded fowls that have loose droppings does
not have to be considered. The chickens can stay in the
houses for a few days, or a week may pass without the
droppings being removed. Of course cleaning up with
the chickens in the house is out of the question.

When warmer weather comes the chickens still remain
in the houses at night and as much as they wish through
the day, but are practically free to go where they please.
They never go far. The growers here believe in placing
no restraints on them outdoors, and depend on the supply
of food in the house to keep them from roaming far.
They say that the well fed chicken will not want to go far,
while the chicken that is not confined is contented, and so
keeps in better condition at less cost.

Their system is perhaps not in every respect ideal. It
has defects which need not be dwelt upon here. But not-
withstanding these defects, the fact remains that these

86 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

growers are producing far the best poultry that goes to the
American market in quantity, and that they are, as a class,
making more on their investment and labor than any other
class of poultry keepers in this country. That being the
case, it would be superfluous to discuss improving their
system here. When the reader has paralleled their success
by their methods — which are the methods which, to date,
have given the best all round results — he will be ready to
consider how to improve them — if they then seem to him
to need improving.

An important feature of the system used here is the thor-
ough cleaning up of the houses and yards once a year. As
there is a period of two or three months between the mar-
keting of the last of one crop and the setting of the first
incubator for the next, and at this time there is not a
chicken or fowl in the houses used for growing stock, it is
possible to give the houses and land adjoining them a more
thorough cleaning up than the ordinary plant ever gets.
The earth floors of the houses are removed and liew earth
or sand hauled in. The fences, wire netting on stakes,
are taken up and the land plowed and planted to some crop
for next winter's chickens — generally to winter rye.

48. Caponizing. — The cockerels of the winter chick-
ens grown for roasters are caponized, but are not dressed
like or sold as capons. Cockerels and pullets alike go to
the market as large roasting chickens. The operation of
caponizing need not be described here. The reader who
wants to learn caponizing should learn from an expert
operator if possible, or failing that should use the full
instructions which special books on caponizing give.

Chickens grown for summer roasters and marketed at

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 87

four or five pounds weight need not be caponized. As
market demands are now there is little advantage in capon-
izing except for cockerels that must be held beyond the age
at which their meat begins to harden.

49. Spring Hatched Roasters. — The small and
medium sized roasters marketed in summer and early fall
are mostly cockerels from the spring hatches of poultrymen
producing chickens* for laying or stock purposes, but a
proportion of those coming from nearby points to the large
markets is stock of both sexes either produced expressly
for roasters or started for broilers, and for some reason
carried over. The spring hatched roasters can be handled
just the same as the winter chickens after weaning, but
they are not caponized unless they are to be grown to full
size and sold the following winter, and little of that is done
except in a few localities wrhere caponizing is quite general
among the farmers. The capons produced in this way are
much superior to old cocks and staggy cockerels, but do
not compare with the South Shore chickens or with the
best small and medium roasters from uncaponized stock as
marketed in the summer. The grower who sells cockerels,
as roasters must, however, look sharp in disposing of them
and let as few as possible stay in his yards long enough to
become " staggy." It is always advisable to work them off
a little small but soft, rather than have the weight gained
hard meat.

88 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

CHAPTER VIII.

Fattening.

SO. Fattening Broilers. — A fat broiler is quite a
Tarity. The best that can be done, in general, is to have
them plump. From what I have seen of broilers in the
•markets and on exhibition I think that a grower will be
more successful in getting plump specimens by selecting
and breeding for that quality than Ijy trying to fatten slim
specimens of five or six weeks old chicks. However, for
chicks that are not plump something must be done. The
usual way is to feed a mash of about two-thirds corn meal
and one-third bran. To this some breeders add molasses
and cotton seed meal, some ten per cent cotton seed meal
and twenty-five to thirty per cent beef scraps. Such heavy
feeding of rich foods is accompanied by a good deal of
risk, and it is no uncommon thing for a grower to hurt his
chicks more than he helps them by it.

The natural tendency of the chick is to turn all nutri-
ment to growth and development, and it may do this with
a " fattening " ration — until the digestive system goes to
pieces as the result of high feeding. The fattening of

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 89

broilers is, therefore, an operation to be conducted by the
novice with great care. It is better for him to be satisfied
at first with marketing them in just good condition than to
make losses by attempts to use extreme fattening methods.
As he grows in experience he can gradually approach
these methods, going as far with them as he finds safe for
Jiim.

51. Fattening Roasters. — As a chicken matures and
requires less and less food for growing bone, muscle, and
feathers, the food consumed in excess of these requirements
goes to reproduction or to fat, according to constitutional
tendencies and to conditions. The growers of soft roasters
have a considerable proportion of their pullets begin to lay
some weeks or even months before it is desired to sell
them, and all such are sold immediately, because after lay-
ing begins the meat becomes harder and dryer — more like
that of an old hen. Other pullets will keep right on grow-
ing and not fatten until well on in the season. A propor-
tion of the caponized cockerels also develop into slips, and
the meat becomes hard and unfit for the trade for which it
was designed. The bulk of the crop, however, is generally
carried to early summer in good flesh. Then if more fat-
tening is needed it is accomplished on the same feeding
that has been used for the chickens since weaning, by
merely confining them more closely so that they may keep
quiet and let the fat accumulate. About ten days confine-
n ent — in pen and small yard — will usually make healthy
chickens in good condition as fat as is desirable. For years
I have fattened cockerels for f rys and roasters on either the
same ration the growing stock was getting, or this ration
changed merely by using more meal in the mash, and all

^O BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

cracked corn for grain. Cockerels so treated before sex-
ual characters are strongly developed will, if they have
grown steadily and well from the start, make as fine and
tender meat as can be produced, and cockerels of slow
maturing stocks will be soft meated until quite full grown.

52. Difficulty of Fattening in Hot Weather. — In

very warm weather it is sometimes impossible to fatten
chickens by ordinary feeding methods because the chickens
either will not eat a heavy ration freely, or are almost
immediately upset by it. It is in such emergencies that
the grower is led to consider special fattening by the use
of the cramming machine. These occasions have been so
scattering and so rare that no extended interest in special
fattening methods has yet developed among growers of the
best grades of market poultry, and I consider it altogether
improbable that European methods of fattening will obtain
in this country within our generation, except to improve
poultry not properly grown by the growers.

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

CHAPTER IX.

Selling and Preparing for Sale.

53. Selling Alive and Dressed. — The question of
selling alive or dressed was briefly mentioned on page 55,'
As there stated, the decision as to which is the better way
to sell must be made by each grower for himself. jThe
grower located where there are many persons producing
poultry, and collectors making regular trips buying poul-
try, will generally, if — as we must suppose — the practice
of most thrifty growers indicates what is best to be done,
find it more satisfactory to sell both broilers and roasters
alive. But many are so situated that they cannot sell alive
to so good advantage, while all who sell to retail or private
family trade must sell dressed. If one does not know how
to dress poultry it is better to hire an expert picker at so
much per chick or fowl. Many small growers about
Boston have the marketmen to whom they sell send them
a picker whenever they have enough chickens ready to
dress to keep a man busy for a day or more. A grower
retailing his fowls should learn to dress them himself.

.92 BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

For such the instructions which follow are a help ; but to
.really learn how to do such work well and expeditiously
iinost people need personal instruction, and for one who
has to do it in his business, it is worth while to go and
work for a week or two in an establishment where poultry
is dressed by the thousands.

54. Methods of Picking. — There are two methods
of picking fowls — dry picking, in which the feathers are
removed dry, after the bird has been bled and stunned,
while the fowl is dying; and scalding, in which, after life
is extinct, the bird is immersed in scalding, not boiling,
water just enough to steam and loosen the feathers, which
are then much more easily removed than by dry picking.
A properly scalded fowl when picked presents as attract-
ive a carcass as a dry picked one, but while it is easier to
remove the feathers when the scalding is done right, so
much of the scalding is done wrong that in the markets
where choice poultry brings best prices, scalding is in dis-
repute, and the best of scalded poultry usually sells a few
cents, two or three, below dry picked poultry of the same

-quality at wholesale. I am inclined to doubt that the
retailers give the difference to their customers. The
grower dressing stock for eastern markets should dry pick
it. Unless a grower is expert in scalding he will find it
to his advantage to dry pick for any market, for there is
much less danger of his making his poultry look bad.

55. Methods of Killing. — Fowls that are to be
scalded and sold with head off may be killed by cutting off
the head with a hatchet — the common way through the
larger part of the country. If to be sold, as in most large
.markets, with head on, they must be killed by bleeding,

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 93;

sticking either in the mouth or neck. The former method
gives the best looking carcass, as there is no outward dis-
figuring wound, but as bleeding in the mouth, unless skill-
fully done, may not allow the fowl to bleed thoroughly, an
inexperienced killer will find it better to stick in the neck
when dressing for sale — at least until by practice on birds
to be consumed at home, he learns to kill by sticking in
the mouth. For this purpose special killing knives for
poultry are made, which may be obtained of any supply
house.

In general, a New England killer works sitting down
with a coop of live chickens at his left, a box for feathers
at his right, and a pail to catch the blood between his feet.
Taking the chicken under his left arm, with the head in
his left hand, while the body is held fast between his arm
and side, he holds the mouth open with the thumb and fore
finger of the left hand, while with tjie knife held in the
right, he makes a deep cut across the mouth to penetrate
the brain, then turning the knife makes a long cut toward
the point of the bill, to allow free bleeding. Next with a
short club he stuns the bird by striking on the back of the
head, then begins to remove the feathers. In some estab-
lishments where many pickers were working on large
fowls, I have seen pickers go to the coop, get their fowl,
stand while killing and stunning it, then sit down to pick.

The u New Jersey " method is to hang the fowl by the
feet by a cord suspended from a hook or beam, and in this
position stick and dry pick it. In some killing houses one
man kills and rough picks, while one or two more remove
the pin-feathers from the fowls he kills ; in others each
picker kills and picks clean his own birds. Some remark-

94

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

able stories are told about rapid picking, but it is a . good
picker that picks clean 70 or 80 chickens a day.

56. Cooling Poultry. — As soon as a carcass is picked
clean it should be put in cold water to cool. The quicker
the animal heat is out of it, the better it will keep. Tubs,
barrels or tanks should be used according to the quantity
of poultry to be cooled, and unless arrangement is made
for running water through whatever receptacles the poultry
is cooled in the water should be frequently changed. The
common practice is to put the carcass first in a barrel or
vat, and after it has remained there for a quarter to half
hour, or even longer, wash the blood from the mouth,
clean the feet, and pass to another cooling barrel or tank.

In cold weather carcasses
cooled in water for from
five or six to ten or twelve
hours may then be taken
from the water and hung
up to dry — where they
will not freeze. They are
then ready to be packed
the first thing in the
morning. If it is very
Method of Packing Poultry in Boxes. warm, or if the carcasses
.exposed to the air would freeze, they should be kept in
water until they are to be packed, then after having been
Allowed to drain for a few minutes they are — if packed
dry — wiped dry before being packed. If to be iced
they of course need not be dried off.

57. Packing Poultry for Shipment. — Poultry that
does not require to be iced to preserve it while in transit is

BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 95

best packed in boxes. The illustration on page 94 shows
the method of packing in boxes. The dimensions of the
box to be used will depend on the size of stock and quantity
to be shipped at one time. Boxes for roasters should be
1 6 to 20 inches wide. For broilers they may be narrower,
or one may use wide boxes, putting two rows of carcasses
in each layer. When poultry has to be iced for shipment
it is packed in barrels. A layer of broken ice is put in
first, then a layer of poultry, then a layer of ice and a layer
of poultry until the barrel is full. In packing poultry in
barrels the packer begins his layer in the middle and packs
heads down, backs up, and feet toward the center. After
filling, the barrels are headed with burlap. This insures
their being kept right side up.

58. Shipping. — Except in settled cold weather poul-
try should be shipped by express. The delays in freight
shipments cause more risk of deterioration and shrinkage
than it is wise to take. A shipper should not send ship-
ments hit or miss at his convenience, but should find out
all about the route his shipments must take, and arrange to
have them en route as short a time as possible. Prompt
delivery of goods means a great deal sometimes in the
returns from them, and dressed poultry spoils so easily
when exposed to bad conditions that wise shippers take no
unnecessary chances.

96

BROILERS AND ROASTERS.

JEX

Adaptability of breeds, 24.
American market requirements, 15.
Appliances, miscellaneous, 55.

Beef scraps, 81.

Bowel trouble. 66.

Broiler, defined and described, 4.

Brooders, 35.

Brooders, operating, 61.

Brooding systems. H5.

Buying eggs indiscriminately, 23.

Cabbage, 79.

Caponizing,86.

Cel lars for incubators, 37.

Charcoal, 82.

Chickens, kind of poultry marketed as, 4.

Cold storage, effect of on demand. 10.

Colony houses, 52.

Color of broilers, 15.

Combining broilers and roasters, 13.

Combining broilers with general poultry
keeping, 10.

Combining roasters with general poultry
keeping, 12.

Combining roasters with other occupa-
tion, 12.

Competition, 28.

Cooked food, 67.

Cook house, 54.

Cooling poultry, 94.

Cracked corn, 79.

Demand and supply. 14.
Dimensions of incubator cellar, 40.
Distance of pipes from brooder floor, 4f
Dry feeding. 65.
Dry feed system, 71.
Dry picking, 92.

Eggs for hatching, 22, 57.
Electric regulators, 61.
Exclusive broiler plants. 8.
Exercise for brooder chicks, 77.

Fattening broilers, 88.
Fattening roasters. 89.
Faults of breeding stock, 18.
Feeding meat, 80.
Feeding systems, 65.
Feeding systems in practice, 76.

Green cut bone, 81.

Green food, 79.

Grit, 82.

Growers producing their own eggs. 22.

Hammonton, broiler growing at, 7.

Hatching with hens, 32.

Heater pit, 45.

Heaters, 46.

Hot weather, fattening in, 90.

Houses for growing stock, 51.

How often and how much to feed, 78.

Icing poultry for shipment, 95.

Incubators. 33.

Incubators in outbuildings, 41.

Incubators, operating, 58.
Individual brooders, M.
Individual brooders in long houses, 48.
Individual brooders in small houses, 49..

Johnnycake,67.

Killing, methods of, 92.

Killing room, 55.

Kind of stock for roasters. 19.

Land, purifying, 30.
Land, quantity and kind, 29.
Leghorns. 26.
Light Brahmas, 25.
Local demands, 28.
Location, 27.

Markets, 27.

Mash feeding, 66.

Mash, receipts for, 69.

Methods of hatching and rearing, 31.,

Milk, 82.

M ongrel stock , 20.

Nursery brooders, 49.

Operating incubators, 58.
Orpingtons, 24.
Outdoor brooders, 50.
Overcrowding, 63.

Packing poultry, 94.
Packing room, 55.
Picking, methods of, 92.
Pin-feathers, dark on broilers, 16,
Pipe brooder houses, 41.
Pipe system of brooding, 36.
Plymouth Rocks, 24.
Points of a good broiler. 15.
Points of a good roaster, 19.
Prepared foods, 74.

Regulator for brooders, 61.
Itoaster, defined ami described, 7..
Rye for green food, 80.

Sand lor floors, 47.

Scalding poultry, 92.

Selling poultry alive, 91.

Shipping, 95.

Soft roasters, 11.

South Shore chickens, 11.

South Shore methods. 84.

Spring hatched roasters, 87.

Squab broiler. 4.

Stock for producing broilers, 17..

Supply and demand, 14.

Temperature of brooder, 62.
Ventilating incubator cellar, 60..

Water, 82.

Weights of broilers, 4.
Weights of roasters. 7.
Wyandottes, 24.

Yellow legs and skin, 15, 19.