Poultry feeding and fattening, including preparation for market, special finishing methods, as practiced by American and foreign experts, handling broilers, capons, waterfowl, etc. ..

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MEMORIAL POULTRY LIBRARY

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PARTIAL VIEW OF A MODERN AMERICAN DUCK FARM

Poultry Feeding
and Fattening

INCLUDING PREPARATION FOR MAR-
KET, SPECIAL FINISHING METHODS,
AS PRACTICED BY AMERICAN AND
FOREIGN EXPERTS, HANDLING BROIL-
ERS, CAPONS, WATERFOWL, ETC.

Fully Illustrated

Compiled by GeEorGE B. FISKE
Author of Poultry Architecture, Poultry Appliances, Etc.

NEW YORK:
ORANGE JUDD COMPANY
1904

Copyright, 1904
ORANGE JuDD Company

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE
ritroductions 20mg ean fcc. tenes ec heudiaclasueneancnteatee Hf
Cuapter I
Phra bye Growth esas eee veeea inicio ates Gnas « hol wo are eeasee a 9
Cuapter IT
Expert Chicken Feeding. ..............ccccccceeece 19
Cuapter III
‘Broiler Raising: eye ace evawien sarsemhad te aRguns 25
Cuarter IV
Nutrition: for Wavyersisenceeisesclnemaea ane Ge eens 37
CHaprer V
Speer elle GOS saree sicev onset oes eae esa Shad bvs ivannte Daverapniadel aeons 51
CuHapter Vi
To Finish and Dress Capons...........eceeecceeees 67
Cuapter Vil
The Art of Poultry Fattening............000 eee ees 13
Cuarter VIIT
Lessons from Foreign Experts............e.eee eens 92
Cuapter IX
American Fattening Methods.................0005- 103
‘CHAPTER X
DAS al arn ee INI Osis anc eu eelertslov, tava tciet'< Yataub sorecoeaeeteveravesciavive 111
CuHapter XI
Preparing’ for Marketscc<scesic00 c¢0 ces cess end ewes 120
Cuapter XII
Marketing Turkeys and Waterfowl............e008. 133

CHAPTER XTII
Finish and Shaping............cscccccccccccceces LAY

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A Modern American Duck Farm ............... Frontispiece
Feeding ecoder CHICKS seeds ngs eev ewes coaae seeds eee

Broilers Ready for Market
Broiler Raising on a City

AS IGO0d | Thayer niece nicer aod aad ier ee ees eee sacar eae 43
A Poor Layer dU SUA ie ORE. GAGA se ee RE ERE I tIe A
AMMebOmmy? COP ves RIO WUE hats ste ostyerosncet eoeloierd aytnd ee dd Meese wnat soeee 47
Meats and Grains Compared 53

DRESSEG: (GaDOn: Steed vrs pas ew yee Atami aie dae nae abun wales

Coops for Fattening ................
Cramming Fowls in Large Plant
American Poultry Cramming Machine .................+. 89
Enelish Meedines Machine: yous vs da veka tasters wee 89
Canadian Feeding Machine in Operation .................. 91
BRUIT ly SRO 1 SE AIT TTT sa es, dad ioc splates deal loltoh vee cade lal anta aod avlades ota 3
Fattening and Killing Sheds,
English Matteninge P6n? sx ccc .adess dace cde woven acces ae
Pinglish Wattenine Shed. vovcyass kere oe aes we ie eae
Brame: of Maittemiiie “Crate: jctdasGvecueet a aunadusaie aan qisvbigae ayskeias
Chickens in Canadian Fattening Crate .................. 105
Fattening Chickens at Bondville, Quebec .............. 106
Fattening Crates with Board Shelter ................... 107
PLOCESS: Of DFESSINS: POUILRY ace ccaakd wieeGeuuiouehanae 112
PiGkimg? va. (CAT GAS: xcs apcae ge cinsiesSnnves ciontosaoeiebagause ue yesernne,Slanetemmieye atetceed LA
Knife and Where to Cut cats aceB hog dl or yeval fala tessa talaga Beara 116
Killing Baevand: Knife Guide cccscrexcaeae pdean eee teens 117
Beheading Block ..... aiken Sees Pete We are eee et aR at ane re aye SILO)
Table for Dressing Fowls. Ea) Ficpesevel Berens oa Ss aaa nage ei eerie 121
Dréssed: Poultry “Well PACKS: oes Arce ess avdeetbyecd Syesetlerece sontert 123
Fowl Dressedafor amily: “Drade’ sracsncaciveseweca Geena dee -ae 128
Canadian ‘Shipping’ Box. sancccsiencniece napa dame comes qoek 129
Turkeys Packed and Marked ......... 060.0 cc cece cece scenes 137
TORI Ke SEV CRB 3k ree Ac Seis cin rat Aires. doe as a eee Mara ea dna. 141
PALIT) Of, DRESS OA. SD UICIES 5 aeons scastexsuss sis asershe vale seusene tine slinsvadeutsarines 143
Ikilling Department of English Duck Farm.............. 146
English Duck Ranch, General View ............. 000000 ee 148
Breast and Thigh Development ...................0 0c eee 149

Shaped: Sussex MOw]S: sccgeaudateavtawacw vase eeamins wstative del 0.
Shaped Fowls; Hrench: 4:00. ssackbes saderesaw aa neoees reese LDL

Shaped: Poultry;. Isa: IBresse: es dean ea katie Resi bees 6S 152
Shaping Board. remGh cee cennsne-< coos ial aacsc on cher sqovensssuceanlnoscaente 153
Shaping Cloths, French ..... silopd du ionieoue <boytieuas Sekzsenea LOD)
Chickens in Canadian Shaping Boar as Bitten he Solar 'uS ie SenRERENS 156

Canadian Shaping Trough in Use ....................000. 157

INTRODUCTION

the scant attention given to the subject of the

standard and improved methods of feeding and

marketing. The result is that the practical
knowledge of these branches of poultry keeping has
lagged behind the others.

Of all live stock, poultry is most often misfed,
overfed or underfed. Conditions are artificial, the
individuals fed are numerous and their needs not
uniform. Most important of all is the need of the
same careful rules and experience which guide feeders
of cattle, sheep or hogs. It is only in recent years that
much attention has been devoted to special study of
poultry to make possible a collection of reliable infor-
mation on the subject. Given good stock, good feeding
is the key to success.

The subject is approached largely from the side of
the best practice and experience, although the under-
lying science of feeding has been explained as fully as
needful. In the absence of digestion tables applied to
fowls and of a sufficient number of feeding trials, the
science of feeding poultry has not yet reached a point
where the so-called scientific ration can be compounded
without large reference to the actual experience of
successful feeders.

The subject has been made to cover all branches,
including chickens, broilers, capons, turkeys, waterfowl :
how to feed under various conditions and for different
purposes. The whole subject of capons and caponizing

le weak point in general poultry books has been

Vill INTRODUCTION

is treated in detail. The chapters on fattening and
preparing for market are intended to be very complete
on a subject scantily covered in other books.

Few realize how much room exists for improve-
ment in the line of feeding and fattening for
market. The best foreign methods have already gained
a foothold in America and the resulting product was
an immediate success in the market. The feeding
machine, shaping board and other special appliances
will soon be in more common use by those who travel
with the van of poultry progress.

American meat buyers are the most lavish in the
world. Having once learned the taste of the best
poultry, not that which is thin and scrawny or has been
covered with grease in the so-called fattening process,
but fowls made to take on more flesh, softened and
ripened, then carefully dressed, fitted and shaped for
market by all the various arts that can make good
poultry attractive to the eye; after once sampling such
poultry the liberal, well-to-do buyer will be content with
nothing inferior. In fact, with the well-known high
standard of the American food buying public, it is hard
to explain why the perfecting of poultry meat has failed
to keep pace with that of similar products.

With the instruction given in this volume there is
no reason why the intelligent poultryman should not
learn after due experience to breed successfully and also
turn out a product as good as the best, and suitable for
the most fastidious trade.

CHAPTER I
THRIFTY GROWTH

HICK feeding is sometimes a very simple matter.
If they are strong stock, hatched in the most
favorable season and given wide range, they
require but little more care in feeding than
mature poultry. The writer has raised thousands under
such conditions on a diet largely composed of ground
grain mixed raw with skimmilk and fed three times a
day from shell to market. Yet no question but care,
frequency, variety and adaptation in feeding chicks
always pays, and is in fact necessary for cold weather
chicks, those of feeble stock and those kept in close
quarters. There is no profit in a chicken kept just
alive. The faster the growth the greater the profit,
whether grown for market or for winter laying.

One reason why more care should be taken in
feeding chickens than the older birds is that the former
know less what they want than the latter. They are
hungry things, and take whatever is given them, and
their digestive organs being weak, they are not as able
to dispose. of anything objectionable as are older fowls.

Far too much corn meal is fed to chicks, and it is
to that cause, in a great measure, that there are so many
young chicks which die early—often before they have
fully feathered out. Like very young stock of any kind,
they require something nourishing, though not violent
or heating, to induce them to make a good and healthy
growth.

To get most rapid growth they should be fed early
in the morning, and as late as they can see to eat at
night. In the intervening time they should be fed not

10 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

less than four times. Feed a little at a time but often,
is a good rule to follow. It is not a bad plan to give
three meals of soft feed and three of dry. In order to
feed with economy, it is necessary to have slat feeding
coops, so made as to admit the chicks and to exclude the
mother hens and other fowls. These coops may be
quickly and oe made by tacking plastering lath
on strips of inch stuff. The food may be placed in
these coops on long boards or shallow troughs. No
more soft food should be given at one time than will
be eaten up clean. The habit that some have of throw-
ing out a ereat mass of soft food—sufficient to last a
day—to become foul and sour, is very wasteful and
injurious to the chicks.

Do not lose sight of the importance of a balanced
ration for the young, growing chickens. Bulletin 61 of
the Rhode Island experiment station shows the danger
that comes from feeding too much grain. The best
results were obtained by feeding an abundance of
animal protein, of which milk is the best form.
Disease and death followed the excessive use of starchy
foods. Green food cannot safely be omitted.

To Fes young chicks along and keep them in
health, there is nothing better than boiled ae mashed
up, shel - and all, with two or three times their bulk
of stale Dread crumbs, or eracker crumbs, thoroughly
mixed. Mix not more than enough for one feed of this
at a time and give them only what they will eat readily
and quickly. Feed stale bread soaked in milk, either
whole, skimmed, or buttermilk after the milk has been
squeezed out by hand,

This is not a very expensive method of feeding, as
the chicks, being so small, will not consume much of
it daily, while the very best results have invariably
followed such a system of feeding and management.
But if milk is not obtainable, use the yolks of tested

THRIFTY GROWTH 11

out eggs, either raw or hard-boiled or soft-boiled, as
convenient, mixed with the bread crumbs, for the first
fortnight. ;

Only one day’s feed should be prepared at a time,
as it will sour if left to stand any length of time.
Millet seed scattered in the litter about the brood house
or the short grass; plump wheat screenings; oats and
corn ground together, with an equal quantity of bran,
and made into johnnycakes—are good for the youny-
sters. After they get to be three weeks old cracked
corn and whole wheat may form a larger part of their
diet, increasing it as they grow older. Better results
are attained by a judicious alternation of all, day by day,
or feed by feed; it keeps the appetite sharp and they are
always on the lookout for the new surprise at meal time.
Don’t forget the pure clean water, they need that what-
ever the feed. If the soil does not supply grit in proper
shape and size it should be furnished them; a dish of
charcoal where they can help themselves, or a handful
in the soft feed four or five times a week, will prevent
most of the ordinary bowel troubles. No tonic or
stimulant should be needed at this age, but if a brood
gets suddenly chilled, a dose of some good condition
powder will help to put them on their feet again.

EXPERIENCE IN FEEDING YOUNG CIIICKS

T feed the young chicks the first few days on bread
soaked in milk, then cracked corn and wheat.—[F. W.
Trask, Lincoln County, Me.

For feeding little chicks I use millet seed and find
it superior to any feed I ever tried. Chicks will do
well on this seed for at least three weeks and grow
faster than on anything I have ever tried—[J. M.
Buckles, Logan County, Ill.

The first ten days I fed them on bread crumbs,
after dipping the bread in milk to moisten it. After

12 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

that I feed them on coarse corn meal moistened, but not
very wet, until they are old enongh to eat cracked grain.
All the time they have plenty of fresh water to drink.—
[ Mrs. L. I. Clark, Erie County, N. Y.

My method of raising chickens is to feed them
any and all kinds of grain and vegetables. I give oats
to make bone, wheat for feathers, corn, buckwheat
and green foods to fatten—[D. C. Wells, Indiana
County, Pa. _

I never feed the chicks until they are twenty-four
hours old, and I sometimes think that is too soon. The
first feed is dry rolled oats and bread crumbs. Then
I feed mostly corn chop. I never feed warm mashes
to the chicks or old hens. The laying hens I feed oats
and screenings in the morning, screenings for dinner
and corn at night, with plenty of good water and
exercise—[F. W. Silloway, Macoupin County, Ill.

I usually feed three times a day, morning, noon
and night. Never throw feed on the ground or in
dishes where it will be likely to be contaminated with
droppings from the hens or other filth. I keep con-
stantly within their reach clean water in pans, changing
it every morning and rinsing out the pans. About 4
p- m. I give them a feed of wheat, cracked corn or
both—[J. J. Parker, Chautauqua County, N. Y.

The chicks are placed in a brooder warmed to ninety
degrees, the floor of which is covered with dry, sharp
sand. I sift some corn and oat chop and mix with sour
milk, soda and salt, and bake johnnycake for them. The
inner part is crumbled into shallow pans and onto clean
paper. The crust is moistened with sweet milk warmed
and fed in pans. The chicks are fed every two hours.
When chicks are four days old, they are allowed to run
in a covered yard 4x8 feet, built around the brooder.
When two weeks old, they are allowed to run at liberty
but are always fed in the brooder yard. As they grow

THRIFTY GROWTIL 13

older, they are not fed so often, and at a month old,
five feeds a day is sufficient. At each feeding, fresh,
clean water is given.—| Mrs. C. G. Ford, Charles City
County, Va. : ,

After the chicks are twenty-four hours old I begin
to feed crushed wheat and some grit. When four or
five days old they get some cake made from middlings
and corn meal. At five or six weeks I give a little
animal meal or scraps. I keep fresh water constantly
before them in small earthenware fountains. I also
use a cake made from American poultry food and one-
fourth corn meal. In addition to the above I give
them the lawn clippings and waste fruit. They are fed
five or six times a day.—[John M. Harrington, Middle-
sex County, Mass.

Our three favorite articles of diet for chicks are
bread crumbs, millet seed and oatmeal, and of the two
latter commodities we buy in quantities expressly for
the season’s work in the poultry world part of the farm.
Millet seed at thirty cents per bushel becomes an inex-
pensive part of their living; ten bushels or more of this
seed is yearly put safely away for this purpose, for the
young broods as they come from nests and incubators.
Oatmeal is purchased by the barrel, lessening the
expense very materially as compared with the price of
it when bought by the pound or “quarter’s worth.”
Rolled oats we have come to look upon with suspicion,
as we have noted occasional bad results from feeding it.
It becomes pasty in the crop if a meal is made of it
exclusively, and thus becomes to an extent indigestible.
We now use the steel cut oatmeal, or what is sometimes
designated “the pinhead oatmeal.” It is clean, sharp
cut, free from flour and much relished by the chicks
and they thrive amazingly upon it. The barrel of oat-
meal just purchased, 200 pounds, cost $4.50. This will
doubtless be more than sufficient for the season, fed,

14 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

as it is, with other kinds of food.—[Nellie Hawks,
JXansas.

Best Developing Ration—For developing thorough-
bred fowls as well as for laying hens, I. KX. Felch recom-
mends the following ration where the grains can be
procured at reasonable prices: Five pounds beans, ten
pounds each wheat bran and barley, and fifteen pounds
each oats and corn. These are thoroughly mixed and
ground fine. For the morning meal take four parts of
this and one part ground beef and scald over night.

Bepert Duck Raising—The following summary is
prepared by G. H. Pollard, an extensive and promi-
nent poultryman of Bristol county, Mass.: Start the
ducklings on a feed of two-thirds bran and one-third
Indian meal. If we have milk, I mix it with that.
Give them drinking water from the first. We start
them on that food with just a handful of gravel or
sand thrown in for two or three days. After that they
are supposed to know enough to eat grit if they want it.
We mix the food cold as a rule. If we had very early
birds we would mix it with warm water and would
slightly warm the drinking water. I never cook the
food. As a rule it seems to me that it makes more
labor with no corresponding gain in produce. The
only question in making a good thing of the business
is in keeping the labor down. You cannot cut down
the amount of their food, but you can make a saving
in the amount of labor.

We start the young ducks on the above-mentioned
food and carry them along until about the fifth day
and then begin to add beef scrap. When we begin to
add this food we gradually take away the milk and give
it to the younger ones which come along. In an
ordinary mash vou cannot get enough animal food from
the milk used to mix it, so we use beef scrap to make
up for it. We rarely give milk to ducklings or even

THRIFTY GROWTH 15

to chicks to drink because they get it all over them-
selves, which makes them anything but pretty birds. We
prefer to give it in soft food. We begin to add about
five per cent beef scrap on the fifth day and from that
we gradually increase the beef supply until at two
weeks they should be getting about ten per cent. If
they do not seem to be thriving we take away most of
the beef and give them grain almost altogether.

Of late our tendency has been to feed more bran.
We never exceed the proportion of half meal and haif
bran. Some breeders give at the end of ten weeks eighty
per cent of meal, but we like bran better. Ducks and
geese detect a very slight change in food and at any
abrupt change they will refuse to eat. I think ducks
are even more particular than geese. The theory with
hens is that they should have as constant change of foot
as it is possible to give them, but this theory will not
work on ducks.

We carry them right straight through on this feed,
not exceeding one-half bran and one-half meal, and
some beef scrap. One can mature birds more quickly
by giving more beef scrap. Of course it is a question
whether one can afford to pay so much for beef scrap
when one could get the same results with bran in a
little longer time. One can get fairly good results with
nothing but bran and meal.

If raising for breeding birds, you can mature them
and get as good a frame on bran and imeal, but it will
take two months longer. A bird hatched in March
would be pretty well developed in September if fed
stimulating food, but it would be November before it
was developed if fed no stimulants. We believe in aa
abundance of green food for breeding birds. In all
waterfowls the white-meated ones are the desirable
birds. A large proportion of bran will give a white-
meated bird either in ducks or fowls.

16 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

For Feeding Ducks, rules vary. One large eastern
grower allows 400 quarts-of mixed feed per day at two
feeds per day for 600 breeding and laying ducks. This
is at the rate of about two-thirds of a quart per day for
each duck. Comparing this with the ration for hens,
it will be seen that the appetite of the duck is much
larger than that of the hen.

Experiments in Feeding Ducks—The feeding and
management of poultry has been studied by a number
of the stations. In most cases the work has been con-
fined to chickens. Two of the stations have reported,
experiments with ducks, summarized as follows by
C. F. Langworthy:

The Michigan station studied the comparative
growth made by thirty-nine young ducks and the same
number of chickens on similar rations. The ducks were
two weeks old at the beginning of the test and were fed
middlings, corn and bran, together with the necessary
grit and green food (lettuce), and were given the run
of a small yard with a grass patch. The chickens were
fed bran and relatively more corn meal than the ducks,
but had no middlings. They were also given lettuce
and allowed the run of a grass plat. Both chickens
and ducks were given skimmilk in addition to the other
food. At the beginning of the test the ducks weighed
13.25 pounds and the chickens 7.5 pounds. In five
weeks the ducks were nearly ready for the early market
and had gained 108.75 pounds. They had eaten 41.3
pounds of corn, 93.1 pounds of middlings, 43.4 pounds
of bran, fifty-nine pounds of lettuce and eighty-eight
pounds of skimmilk. The total cost of a pound of
gain was 1.9 cents. In the same period the chickens
had gained thirty pounds and had consumed 52.2
pounds of corn, 25.9 pounds of bran, forty-six pounds
of lettuce and 44.3 pounds of skimmilk. The total coat
of a pound of gain was 4.84 cents. In discussing the

THRIFTY GROWTH 17

profits corn and bran are rated at $14 and middlings
at $15 per ton, milk at twenty cents per hundred, and
lettuce at one cent per pound. The ducks gained much
more rapidly than the chickens and the gains were more
economically made. The chickens were not large
enough for market at the close of the test and the feed-
ing was continued for some time before they were sold.

At the North Carolina station eighteen Pekin
ducks were fed for fifty-six days from the time they
were hatched. At the beginning of the test the total
food consisted of 4.4 ounces of corn meal and an equal
amount of bran per head daily, while at the close of
the test, six pounds ten ounces of meal, four pounds
three ounces of bran and three pounds five ounces of
bone were fed daily. In addition to the grain an
amount of fine grit equal to one-sixth of the weight of
the grain, and chopped green clover equal to one-fourth
the bulk of the ration, were also fed. All the feed was
mixed with water to a crumbly mass and fed in troughs.
No water was allowed except for drinking purposes.
In this test corn meal, cut bone and grit were each
rated at one cent per pound and wheat bran at 0.9 cent
per pound. Account was also taken of the value of the
clover fed, the eggs set, and the food of hens carrying
the ducks. The ducks weighed two ounces when
hatched, and four pounds fifteen and one-half ounces at
the close of the test. The cost of a pound of gain
was 5.05 cents.

What to Feed Young Turkeys, as told by E. D.
Weswer of South Dakota, whose methods have been
awarded a prize in a recent contest: After the eggs
are all hatched and the young turks are taken off and
placed in their house and yard, give them their first
meal, which should be stale bread crumbs soaked in
milk, and hard-boiled eggs. Boil an egg five minutes
and it will be tough and indigestible, but boil it half

18 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

an hour and it will be easily crumbled. When four or
five days old begin feeding curds, and give all the sour
milk they will drink. Chop onion tops and lettuce and
give with the food until they begin picking young and
tender grass. Twice or three times a week give a little
pepper in the food. Don’t give too much—their mouths
are not lined with sheet iron—but season as if you
expected to eat it yourself.

By the third week, begin feeding cooked corn meal.
Do not give a full feed of meal at first, but add a little
more each day, until at four or five weeks they are
to be fed entirely on cooked corn meal, with all the sour
milk they will drink. Never feed any raw meal to
young turkeys. It should always be cooked by baking,
until the turkeys are two and one-half months old.
Feeding meal too soon, feeding uncooked meal and
feeding grain before they are able to digest it will kill
fully one-half of the brood.

When six or eight weeks old, feed cracked corn or
wheat screenings at night. From the time when you
begin feeding until they are fully feathered and have
thrown out the red on their heads, feed five or six times
a day; then if insects are plenty they will thrive on two
meals a day, cooked corn meal and potatoes in the
morning and cracked corn or other grain at night.

Should a sudden shower come up while the young
turkeys are out foraging, drive them to their coops.
If any get chilled and refuse to eat, take them to the
house, dry and warm them thoroughly, return to the
mother and give a good feed with plenty of red pepper
or ginger mixed in. Where insect forage is abundant,
turkeys will pick the greater part of their living for
three or four months and in such localities it will do
to turn them out after they are three months old
without any breakfast. ut they should always have
a handful of grain at night.

CHAPTER II

EXPERT CHICKEN FEEDING
BY A. F. HUNTER

P NHE first rule for getting a good profit from
poultry is to hatch the chickens early. Equally

- important is the second—keep them growing so

that they will come to laying maturity by
November 1. The food and care has much to do with
keeping the chicks growing.

Let them alone until they are twenty-four hours
old, or until the morning of the twenty-second day.
They need no food during this time; nature has pro-
vided for that by absorption of the egg yolk into their
little abdomens, and it is necessary that this egg yolk
be digested and assimilated before any other food goes
in. Much damage is done and many chicks killed by
not observing this rule. Some people in their feverish
haste to get the chicks growing, hurry food into their
crops before the system has been toned up to take care
of it. The consequence is the bowels are congested,
dysentery sets in, and the chick goes over to the
majority.

We always set the hens in pairs, so the chicks of
two hens may be given to one, allowing the other to
reset. When a brood is to come off we take a covered
basket to the nest, remove all the chicks from one hen
and put them in the basket, then take the basket and
biddy to a coop previously made ready in a sunny,
grassy spot. Putting the hen down in the coop, the
basket is tipped upon its side near her and the downy
little things run out to her protection.

An egg has been previously boiled hard, chopped
fine, shell and all, and mixed with double the quantity

20 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

of bread crumbs. This is set before them for their first
meal. To be sure, biddy gobbles about all of it. No
matter. She has none hard, half starving herself to
bring forth this promising little flock, and a good feed
now will help to make her contented and happy, con-
sequently a better mother.

Feed a little and often is the best method; every
- two hours, say five times a day, till the chicks are five
weeks old. See that no food is left in the sun to sour
after they have eaten; remove it all. Nothing causes
more bowel looseness and dysentery than sour food.

Our chief foods for the first five or six weeks are
coarsest oatmeal slightly moistened with sweet milk,
and waste bread from hotels and restaurants. This
bread consists of bread, rolls, tea and corn cakes, etc.,
and is an excellent food for chickens. We spread it on
the attic floor to dry, and then grind it to coarse
crumbs in our bone mill. The first feed in the morning
is bread crumbs slightly moistened with milk or water ;
the second, about nine o’clock, is oatmeal moistened as
above ; about eleven, bread crumbs again, about half-past
one, oatmeal, and about four o’clock a little cracked
wheat or cracked corn.

There has been much dispute as to how soon dry
grain or cracked grain should be fed to chicks. An
article upon chicken feeding, by Mr. W. Vale, in
Feathered World (London), says: “The chick cannot
be too soon supplied with food that will require the
grinding power of the gizzard to be properly brought
into action. Soft food will not do this, consequently
more or less dry food must be supplied. In the gizzard
with the aid of some grit, the woody fiber enveloping
the most nutritious parts of seeds and grain is ground
into atoms, also the nutritious parts thoa prepared for
digestion and assimilation. Some gritty substance is
absolutely essential; for, without it, the gizzard cannot

aw

EXPERT CHICKEN FEEDING 21

properly perform its work. Even baby chicks should
be fed upon a sanded floor. The gritty matter should
be as hard and sharp as possible, so that it will grind
up bones and such like substance. When chicks are
young, broken wheat, coarse oatmeal, canary seed and
hemp seed are each suitable. They should not have
much, if any, Indian corn, as it makes them too fat, and
thus renders them liable to a variety of ailments. For
stock purposes a fat fowl is worse than useless, for its
progeny is almost certain to be weak.”

Green food must be supplied. If the chicks are
cooped upon fresh grass the problem is solved and they
will help themselves to what they need. If, however,
they are confined in small yards, finely cut grass, as
from the lawn mower, onion tops chopped fine, lettuce
leaves, or even boiled vegetables, will make a good sub-
stitute. The grass run is the thing if possible, and
substitutes are only suggested where the grass run is
unobtainable.

Fresh, cool water is kept constantly accessible and
a drink can be taken when wanted.

Grit is another necessity. Don’t think the chicks
can find this themselves. That is one of the commonest
mistakes in rearing chicks. Have a little dish of grit,
or fine gravel, or coarse sand, or broken oyster shells,
or broken crockery, or pounded bricks, or even fine
clinkers from coal ashes, such as will pass through a
quarter-inch mesh sieve, but won’t pass through an
eighth-inch mesh sieve; all these are good, and one of
them at least is get-at-able.

For the benefit of those who cannot get waste
bread we give Mr. I. K. Felch’s rule for his excelsior
meal bread: “Grind into a fine meal in the following
proportions: twenty pounds corn, fifteen pounds oats,
ten pounds barley, ten pounds wheat bran. We make
the cake by taking one quart of sour milk or buttermilk,

22 POULTRY FEEDING ND FATTENING

adding a little salt and molasses, one quart of water in
which a large heaping teaspoonful of saleratus has been
dissolved, then thicken ‘all with the excelsior meal to
a little thicker batter than your wife does for corn cakes.
Bake in shallow pans till thoroughly cooked. We be-
lieve a well-appointed kitchen and brick oven pays, and
in the baking of this food enough for a week can be
cooked at a time.”

Wright’s “Practical Poultry Keeper” says: “With
regard to feeding, if the question be asked what is the
best food for chickens, irrespective of price, the answer
must decidedly be oatmeal. After the first meal of
bread crumbs and egg, no food is equal to it, if coarsely
ground and only moistened so much as to remain
crumbly. The price of oatmeal is, however, so high as
to forbid its use in general, except for valuable breeds;
but we should still advise it for the first week in order
to lay a good foundation.”

We are obliged to differ with Mr. Wright as to
oatmeal being an expensive food for chicks. It cer-
tainly looks expensive to pay six dollars a barrel (three
cents a pound) for oatmeal for chicken food, but it
spends so well, goes so far, that we have found it an
economical food. We used fifty dollars’ worth last year,
practically ten cents per chick raised, and it made two-
fifths of their food from shell to laying maturity.
Considered simply as a food ration, it is economical,
but when we consider that “good foundation” which it
makes, it becomes even more desirable. A good founda-
tion in the chick means eggs in the basket the next fall
and winter; hence oatmeal is a cheap food, in the best
sense of the term.

For the first six weeks I feed five times a day, or

about once in two and one-half hours, and after the
chicks are six weeks old I feed four times a day.

we
Ge

EXPERT CHICKEN FEEDING

The breakfast is bread crumbs, continued until
they are about ten weeks old, when they are graduated
into the morning mash such as we feed to our fowls.
About ten o’clock they have a feed of the coarsest
oatmeal moistened; about half-past one o’clock a light
feed of cracked wheat or eracked barley (the latter is a
by-product of a cereal manufactory, and an excellent
food), and about five o’clock, whole wheat or cracked
corn, one one day, the other the next. Twice a week
we have fresh meat (butchers’ trimmings), cooked and
chopped, which is mixed in with the coarsest oatmeal
(about half and half) for the second feed. We have,
also, a bone cutter, and twice or three times a week the
chicks have a good time wrestling and tumbling over
each other in their eagerness to get the fresh cut bone.

Not having a bone cutter, we should mix some bone
meal into the moistened bread crumbs for breakfast, and
about three times a week we sprinkle in a little condition
powder as a condiment to promote digestion and good
health. We intend to vary the food ration continually
within the range here described. For instance, one day
the food will be bread erumbs, oatmeal, cracked wheat,
cracked corn; the next day, bread crumbs, oatmeal and
chopped meat, cracked barley, whole wheat; the next
day, bread crumbs, cut bone, oatmeal, cracked corn
and so on.

The rule is to feed only what the chicks will eat
up clean and quickly; but we break over the rule so far
as the last feed is concerned, and the boy goes around
a second time, twenty to thirty minutes after feeding,
and if it is all eaten up clean, three or four handfuls
more are put down, so that all shall have a chance to
“fill up” for the night. If a handful is left uneaten
it quickly disappears in the morning, and as it is always
dry grain, it does not sour, and there is no danger from
leaving a little. Grit, in the shape of screened gravel,

24 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

is also always by them, and ground oyster shells are
given them about twice a week. As there are no trees
in our fields we provide a temporary shelter for shade,
making a slanting roof near each coop. This helps
each family to identify its own home, and, besides,
shelter from the hot sun is shelter from the rain also,
and the feed boards are put under it in wet weather.
With this liberal feeding of a varied food ration the
pullets will begin to lay in October and the fowls are
then turned off to the butcher, the houses cleaned up
and whitewashed and the pullets moved in.

CHAPTER It
BROILER RAISING

HIS industry requires both skill and capital. A

| successful broiler plant should be run in con-

nection with an egg farm, so that the eggs may

be supplied from the home yard. In winter time

purchased eggs often either get chilled or are infertile.

The second requisite to success is a good incubator.

Hens cannot do the hatching during cold weather. The

incubator must be so constructed that it will furnish a

uniform temperature throughout. The heat should
never fall below 101 degrees nor go above 103.

The brooder is important after the chickens have
been hatched. A brooder must be so constructed that
it is always a little warmer in the center than in other
portions. The temperature should be kept close up to
100 degrees for two or three days. After that ninety-
five degrees is about right for the remainder of the first
week, after which reduce the temperature five degrees
each week until seventy degrees is reached.

An even temperature seems the kev to raising
healthy winter chicks. Visiting the Rhode Island
poultry school m 1901, the writer saw 600 in a room
fifteen by twenty-eight feet heated by steam pipes anJ
radiators to a uniform temperature of about seventy-
two degrees day and night, except for the first few days
of the Ciiekene life, when the temperature was eighty-
five to ninety. They were kept in small flocks in
brooder boxes and fed as usual. Although the chickens
never breathed outdoor air from hatching to the time
when at eight or ten weeks of age they were marketed
as broilers, they seemed very strong, active and thrifty,
and not over fifteen per cent were lost or proved defect-

26 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

ive from any cause; a fine showing for January chicks.
Some of these chicks were raised to maturity and proved
equal to the average to all appearances, although the:
first ten or twelve weeks of their lives had been passed
wholly in the room mentioned.

At the same time this experiment was going ou
other chickens hatched and fed in the same way as these
just. described were being reared in brooders heated
separately by lamps in the usual manner, and about one-
half of them died from lung and other diseases before
reaching the broiler size. The manager of the warm
room experiment, Dr. Cooper Curtice, writes as follows
describing the feeding:

“Many people have asked, on seeing the healthy-
growing, well-feathered young chicks, what food we were
using. The winter’s experience, in which a variety of
erains were used, indicates that it is not so much what
the food is as how the food is supplied, providing there
are plenty of starchy, albuminous and green matters.
In nature, small seeds, insects and grass furnish food
for chickens. These are most abundant in the spring
and summer months, and it is at this time that the
chickens thrive. To secure the best results, foods
simulating both the composition and the mechanical
character of these should be supplied. For instance, in
the summer the tips of grasses are young and tender
and easily broken by the chickens. For green stuff to
be easily assimilable, some plant should be supplied
which may also be easily broken. We have found
hanging a head of lettuce in the brooder by a string to
exactly furnish the desired want and be greedily, even
crazily, eaten by the chickens. We have found that
sifting the cracked corn, scraps and cracked wheat
through sieves, so as to remove both the meal and larger
pieces, gives favorable results. Millet seeds, broken rice,
rolled oats, and other things of this character were

BROILER RAISING 27

greedily eaten and well digested. For meat for the
youngest chickens, we have given the sterile eggs boiled
hard and ground through a sausage machine. While it
is preferable, if one has time, to chop the egg fine and
mix it with bran, or even feed it a little at a time to
the chickens, we found it satisfactory to mix it with the
bran until it was crumbly and feed it in bulk; a sulli-
cient quantity being given for the number of chickens
in the brooder. Mixing the eggs with cracker did not
succeed with us as well for very young chicks, although
it is fed by others apparently without harm. As the
chickens grew older meat scraps were substituted. These
were usually sifted, added to the grain ration, and
strewn upon the floor of the brooder. Boiled liver and
animal meal were also used, but there was very little
difference in the gain of the different chickens when
fed upon the animal meal, meat scraps or egg.

“One mixture of seeds was made as follows, at the
suggestion of the poultryman: For chicks from one
day to six weeks old: Mix four parts cracked oats, one
of fine cracked wheat, two of rolled oats, one-half of
millet seed, one-half of broken rice, and two of fine
scraps. For the first two weeks we have added one
pint of millet sced, leaving out scraps during the first
week. Boiled eggs, three for each fifty chicks, have
also been fed. After six weeks, and up to ten weeks,
feed the following mixture: Mix four parts cracked
corn, two of fine cracked corn, one of rolled oats, one-
half of millet, one-half of broken rice, one of grit, and
two of scraps.

“For chicks kept in the colony system give for
grain, three parts wheat and four of cracked corn. Also
give the following mash three times per week and daily
after ten weeks: Mix one part ground corn, one of
ground oats, and one of brown shorts. To feed the meat
scraps we made the seed-feed into a mash with boiling

28 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

water, mixed the scraps with it and covered the mass
until it was well steamed. This mash seems to hasten
the growth of the chicks. While it seemed necessary
to feed the youngest chicks rather oftener, those ten
days old were fed mash in the morning, green food at
noon, and dry seeds at night, allowing them to fill their
crops. When fed oftener they seemed to get satiated
and had no desire to eat.”

An illustration, Figure 1, shows the poultry super-
intendent and some of the students feeding these chick-
ens. The grain being thrown on very coarse gravel
provides a great deal of heavy scratching for the chicks
without causing much dust or dirt. An illustration,
Figure 2, shows several of these winter broilers as
prepared for market.

It is, of course, not practicable for many broiler
raisers to use a warm room in the house as just
described, but some attention to the brooder rooms in
the line of tightness and warmth will tend toward the
same good results.

For later broiler chickens, which include the
majority grown, the weather changes are less severe,
and the birds will do better if got outdoors as soon aftcr
hatching as the weather permits.

Growing Small Broilers—Poultry specialties are
becoming still further specialized. Most of the large
growers have some special sub-branch to which they
devote more attention and from which they get the
greater part of their profit.

At Owls Nest Farm in Middlesex county, Mass.,
the specialty is the growing of small broilers, which are
sold at a weight of about three-fourths pound dressed.
Chickens of this size are from five to eight weeks old,
smaller than pigeons, and to the average farmer would
look too insignificant for any use, but the swell clubs

SHOIHO UAdOOUd YNIGATI—T “Shy

3U POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

and high-class hotels in Boston are glad to pay seventy-
five cents for them in winter and spring. (See Figure 2.)

Owls Nest Farm has been run for several years
and has built up a large trade of the above description ;
285 of these small broilers are sold from January 1 to
January 20, mostly to clubs and high-class private trade
in Boston. This branch of the business is continued
the year round, although prices grow lower in the

Fig. 2—TWELVE-OUNCE BROILERS DRESSED FOR MARKET

summer and fall. Incubators are started the last third
of January, and from 8000 to 10,000 chickens are
hatched out during the year. The breeds used for
broilers are Wyandots and Plymouth Rocks. Said
Superintendent Woodland: “Even for light weight
broilers such as we produce, the small breeds like the

2

BROILER RAISING ol

Leghorns are not satisfactory. They need to be two
weeks older than the Plymouths to give the same weight.

“The chickens are not fed for the first day after
hatching. Their first food consists of broken crackers
softened in water, cooked mush and bird seeds. They
are fed very often at first, four or five times or oftener,
each day. As soon as they get well started their main
soft ration is a mixture of corm meal and middlings,
half and half, which is made early in the morning and
allowed to stand until about nine o’clock and fed warm.
The first feed, fed very early in the morning, is hard
grain. Cracked corn, cracked wheat or cracked oats
are fed at noon and at night. They get one quart of
meat scraps in the mush for each 2000 chickens. For
green food they have cabbages to peck at and clover
hay steamed. Mica, grit, charcoal and water are kept
constantly by them.

“They are kept warm by hot water pipes about six
inches from the floor of the pen. Sand is filled in
under the pipes to varying hights, according to the size
of the chickens. The ends of the pipes nearest the
broiler are warmest and the youngest chickens are kept
there. A great point in raising healthy winter chicks
is to keep them scratching. The grain and bird seed
is always fed in sand or litter in order to make the
chickens work for it. All our chicks are raised hy
incubators and brooders, and by comparison with hens
which are used some years we find that we can hatch
and raise twenty-five per cent more chicks by using
incubators and brooders.

“In finishing off chickens for market, something
depends upon our orders. When a lot of chickens are
needed in a hurry two or three weeks hence, they are
put in a fattening pen and fed all they will stand.
Giving as great a variety of food as possible in feeding
them, just before they get all they want the dishes are

32 FOULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

taken away, leaving them a little hungry. Then the
next feeding time they will be looking for more. They
would not stand this high feeding process very long at
a time, but when they are to go to market in two or
three weeks, they can be quickest finished off in this
manner. Chickens which are to be kept a longer time
must be fed less, kept hungry all the time, so that they
are ready to fly out of the pen when the man comes
around with the feed. They must be kept scratching.
The best we can do, we lose an average of three or four
a day in winter.

“When the chickens are wanted for market they are
carried in baskets to the killing house, where they are
dispatched by stabbing the back of their mouth with a
lancet. The head is not removed. They are not fed
for twenty-four hours before killing and the entrails
are not removed. They are dry picked and packed in
pairs in pasteboard boxes made to fit. There is an ice
box for cooling the dressed poultry in summer.”

Intensive farming in or near a city, where the
market is, can be carried on in no better way than in the
raising of broilers. The following account of a city
broiler plant is by W. M. Hayes, Hampden county,
Mass.: “My lot is fifty by 150 feet, with a two-tene-
ment house and stable that accommodates nine horses
and sheds to cover wagons, sleighs, ete. The brooder
quarters, as shown in Figure 3, occupy the second floor
of the wagon shed, fourteen by fifty-two feet. The only
heat obtained is from the brooder stoves.

“The brooders are arranged in a series, side by side,
each two and one-half by four feet and without hovers.
They are entirely homemade affairs and I consider them
as practical as any without a regulator. One of the
incubators holds 860 to 400 hens’ eggs, the other 119
eges. My first hatch was December 3. From then
until summer I hatched 1279 chicks and raised as

BROILER RAISING 33

broilers or sold to be raised 1067. I hatch thoroughbred
stock, as such sell more readily. I sold several hundred
at fifteen to seventy-five cents each, according to size
and age, to be raised. Those that reached broilers so
as to dress one and one-half pounds brought at whole-
sale $1.20 per pair and $1.50 to private trade.

“The most delicate part of this business is to raise
them. Where there is no room to spread out growing
stock, one must almost live with them to be able to

‘Fig. 3—BROILER RAISING QUARTERS ON A CITY LOT

satisfy their needs. They must be kept clean and
healthy. I have learned that it is not any particular
kind of food that is sure to raise the little artificially
hatched orphans; more depends on proper temperature,
ventilation and cleanliness than any prescribed method
of feeding.

bt POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

“The first three or four hours after taking from
the incubator, put them in a clean brooder that has
been heated to ninety degrees with top heat. The floor
is covered one-half inch deep with sharp sand and
sprinkled over the sand is a little chicken grit.

“Their first feed is a very little rolled oats; feed
sparingly the first day, and also for a week. After
being in the brooder twenty-four hours, they are fed
every two hours for three weeks, chiefly on rolled oats,
fine cracked corn and millet seed. From the first hour
in the brooder, they are allowed all the fresh cold
water they want. J have constantly before them in self-
feeding boxes dry wheat bran, grit, charcoal and bone
meal. J am often surprised to see how much dry bran
they eat. At three wecks I give one feed a day of warm
mash until nine weeks old, when they have all hard
grain.

“Chicks like a variety, and I have to keep them
guessing what they are going to get next. It is fun to
steal in on them on the quiet and see them all rubber-
necking in their curious way to see what is to come
next. J always find pleasure in feeding almost any
kind of green food, as well as profit; then when the time
comes to feed fresh meat and bone, to see the little
anxious, hungry things go over and over each other in
their eager way to get the first mouthful of that favor-
ite meal.

“Tf you use a brooder house in the second story,
you must look out for leg weakness, as the sand and
litter become very dry, and I find it necessary to sprin-
kle the runs at night after they have gone to bed. I had
great difficulty in getting eges with good, strong germs,
which are most essential in raising chickens. I do not
believe it is possible to produce good, strong-germed
eges from fowls that are closely confined; give them
lots of range.”

BROILER RAISING 35

Small Broilers—Chickens hatched in December can
be sold at eight to ten weeks of age when dressing
twelve to sixteen ounces each, and after March 1 will
bring the shipper ninety cents per pair. Those most
in demand dress one pound each. These are called
“squab broilers” or “individual chickens,” and as the
supply of game decreases from year to year, there is
more demand for these small broilers, and it is quite
profitable for raisers to use this size unless they have
ample room to carry a small proportion over as roasting
stock.—[W. D. Rudd.

Lo Finish Broilers for Market—When nearly large
enough for broilers put the chickens into a pen having
a shady run and a shady side. Here give them clean,
fresh water once or twice a day, and all the fattening
food they can eat. Muscle and bone-making foods,
remember, are not required. Corn in various forms,
however, should be fed freely to them. Cooked corn,
mashed corn and ground corn, as well as whole corn,
should be fed every day. Warm potatoes and bread
crumbs will also make fat. Any kind of milk and a
little sugar will likewise help along the fattening process,
and this should be as fast as possible, for during these
days the chicks will eat considerable, and if they do not
lay on fat every hour it will be a losing operation.

To get hens which will produce eggs for hatching
in December, January and February, hatch the pullets
early, keep them growing and get them to laying so
that by the time eggs are wanted you have them for the
incubator. Keep the pullets growing well during the
summer. Feed wheat and mixed grains. Keep free
from vermin. Place in winter quarters about October 15.

Dressing and Marketing Broilers—We scald, pick
all broilers and ship in barrels to Chicago, where we get
from eighteen to twenty-two cents per pound. We take
the feathers off, but leave the head and feet on, and

36 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

leave them undrawn. If shipped in warm weather we
crush ice and put in a layer of broilers, then a large
scoop of ice and so on until barrel is full, then put on
a piece of ice weighing about twenty-five pounds. Put
burlap over that and nail fast to barrél. If picked in
cold weather use brown paper to line barrel, also use as
lavers between broilers. In scalding, do not scald head.
If you do, if will look pale and white and make the chick
look as if it was sick when killed, but if not sealded will
show up red. This will make a difference of one to one
and one-half cents on the pound. After they are picked,
plump them in hot water not quite to a boil, then throw
them at once in a barrel of cold water. After you are
through picking and have the barrel full, throw some
salt in the water over them. It will draw the blood
out of the skin and make them show up white. Leave
them in cold water until thoroughly cooled out, which
will take from six to eight hours in hot weather.—
; Burt Curry, Tennessee.

CHAPTER IV
NUTRITION FOR LAYERS

OWLS, even more than any other class of live
stock, require variety in their feed. None of the
single grains is best for poultry. More than other
classes of live stock, too, they require close atten-

tion and knowledge on the part of the feeder. It is
almost impossible, by direct experiment, to determine
the relative values of two different grains as a hen food
for egg production, because so many other factors enter
into the problem in each particular case.

If hens are fed their grain feed in such way that
they have to exercise vigorously to get their daily feed
they are much more apt to lay than if fed in troughs
plenty of prepared feed, allowing them to remain idle.
Again, if the rooms are either too warm or too cold the
results are not satisfactory; or if the supply of green
feed or of mineral matter be insufficient.

Wheat or rye is a good feed for fowls, but should
constitute not over a third of the ration. Buckwheat
is also a good feed, but starchy, and therefore to be fed
in limited quantities only, and even corn, which turns
out, on experiment, to be a particularly good feed,
notwithstanding the opposition to it by theorists, should
not constitute the sole grain feed. Give a mixture of
the grain feeds scattered in cut straw or gravel, so the
hens will have to scratch, and feed also cut bone and
plenty of grit.

In order to get early eggs some extra feed in addi-
tion to the ordinary ration generally given by farmers is
needed. As arule the trouble on the farm is that after
corn is gathered there is an overabundance of grain

8 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

eo

lying around and in consequence the fowls become too
fat. All farmers have hay to spare, at least they should
have, and a few pounds per week fed to the hens will
greatly increase the egg production. Clover hay is best,
but any kind is good. Feed as follows: Cut into as
short lengths as possible (one-quarter to one-half inch)
and in the evening fill a two-gallon bucket full, cover
and place on the kitchen stove and allow it to boil as
long as there is fire. When the morning fire is built,
allow the hay to heat again, then drain off the water
and mix with the hay three quarts of wheat bran, or
enough to make it crambly, adding three pounds animal
meal or scraps. This will make two gallons of feed.
Give it to 100 hens as a morning feed. Remember this
is for cold weather and for fowls that are at liberty on
the farm.

In the evening, late, supply what they will consume
of corn one day, and oats or wheat next, and so on. Be
sure to give plenty of fresh water every day and on very
cold mornings it is a good idea to make the water
slightly warm. If you do not, it will freeze at once,
and be of no service. Be sure the henhouse has good
tight ends and sides and always front the house to the
south. The warmer the fowls are in winter, without
supplying artificial heat, the more eggs they will lay
and the earlier they will become broody.

It is a mistake to feed poultry corn or wheat or corn
and wheat exclusively. Corn is too rich in carbona-
ceous matter and wheat is substituted by some in order
to avoid making the hens too fat. They overlook the
fact that wheat contains a large per cent of starch also,
and that it will fatten poultry almost as readily as corn.
It contains more gluten than corn and is therefore
somewhat preferable on that account, but to feed
largely of wheat will just as surely make the hens over-
fat as corn.

NUTRITION FOR LAYERS 39

A mixture of wheat and corn, or corn and wheat
fed alternately, will fatten the fowls quicker than
either fed alone, as variety helps digestion and less
waste is sustained. Oats and buckwheat are excellent
substitutes when needed, but no grain should be fed
exclusively. Some grain is all right, but a part of the
food for laying hens should consist of something else.
Scalded corn fodder or ensilage, cooked turnips, small
potatoes, etc., fed while warm, make excellent feed.
The elements of any egg are derived from so many
sources that no single food will answer the purpose.
Hens to lay well must have a variety. To feed corn
and wheat but partially supplies their wants.

Clover hay is a first-class egg food. It may be
chopped fine, scalded with boiling water and allowed
to stand over night in a covered vessel. Next morning
mix with bran, season with salt and feed warm.
Furnish green food by feeding cabbage, turnips, beets,
potatoes, etc. Feed meat scraps two or three times a
week. Give a variety of grain, wheat, oats, barley,
buckwheat, and as the nights grow cold, feed nice, sound
corn three times a week for their supper. This will
help keep up animal heat during the long cold nights;
it is much better if given well warmed. Beans and peas
fed twice a week are good for laying hens. Linseed
meal is also beneficial if fed sparingly; when given too
freely it is apt to cause looseness of the bowels, and has
a tendency to produce molting.. Plenty of sweet milk
is valuable, also clabber and buttermilk, though too
much buttermilk will often cause bowel trouble.

Meat, fresh or dried, is a very good food. If a
supply of poultry food be bought by the quantity in the
fall, it will greatly lessen the feed bill. On almost
every farm there are small, knotty apples, potatoes,
beets, loose heads of cabbage, allowed to go to waste,
which if gathered and stored will help furnish the

40 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

needed variety and also materially lessen’ the expense.
Do not keep food constantly before the fowls, if you do
not wish them to become disgusted and lose their
appetite. Give tincture of iron occasionally in their
drinking water. Reliable tonics and condition powders
are all right in their place, but do not expect them
alone to make eggs without giving the proper food, as
seems to be the idea of some. Keep the hens at work.
This is very important—you cannot give a laying hen
too much exercise when cooped. An idle hen soon grows
too fat to lay. Encourage them to scratch and work
for their food, by throwing the grain among a htter
of leaves and straw. Give them corn on the cob and
throw them millet heads in which the seed has ripened
and oats in the sheaf. Suspend cabbage heads with the
heads downward, so that they can barely reach them.

The hens that in February are laying eggs for
hatching must have a large amount of exercise, and
must be fed a ration that will keep them in good con-
dition—neither too fat nor too poor—and they must
have good, fresh air, for eggs laid in ill-smelling
quarters are not the eggs from which to expect chickens.
It is easy enough to secure exercise for the poultry in
winter. Just fill the pens eight or ten inches deep with
refuse hay, corn butts, chaff and other litter, the whole
underlaid with gravel, and keep the hens hungry
enough to work diligently for the grain that is scattered
in it. Feed a scant breakfast of mush that has bran,
flour, corn meal, crushed oats and some kind of meat
meal in it, and then keep the hens scratching all day
for the few handfuls of wheat and cracked corn that are
thrown, a little at a time, into the litter, keeping a
window open in the pen when the weather will permit.
At night give the hens all they want of cracked corn,
oats, wheat and barley, and keep grit, charcoal and clean
water before them all the time.

NUTRITION FOR LAYERS 41

There is one other item in the bill of fare that must
not be overlooked if we would approximate toward
summer conditions. The fowls must have green food,
and a certain amount of bulky food. So feed cabbage,
raw, and cut clover that has been soaked in boiling
water, giving these at night, or with the morning mush,
or occasionally at noon (though not at this time in
quantities to satisfy the fowls’ hunger, else scratching
will cease), and it will be found that the eggs, if not
allowed to get chilled, contain strong and fertile germs.

It is generally considered that poultry like a variety
of food and do better when the rations are frequently
changed than where one or two things are fed continu-
ously. A western poultry keeper, who has been very
successful in securing winter eggs, varies the ration
from day to day and feeds as follows: Monday morn-
ing, sheaf oats, night, warm mash; Tuesday morning,
vegetables, noon, cut green bone, night, cracked corn
scattered in litter; Wednesday morning, sheaf wheat,
evening, warm mash; Thursday morning, vegetables,
noon, whole wheat in litter, night, whole corn in litter ;
Friday morning, vegetables, noon, green cut bone, night,
eracked corn in litter; Saturday morning, sheaf wheat,
evening, warm mash ; Sunday morning, vegetables, noon,
whole wheat in litter, night, whole and cracked corn
and wheat in litter.

The sheaf wheat or oats fed in the morning keep the
fowls busy all day, so that no more feed is required.
The mash consists of cooked potatoes or vegetables, cut
clover and beef scraps, all mixed in a crumbly mass with
some bran, shorts, chop feed, a little oil meal and salt,
and sometimes a little powdered charcoal. Clean, fresh
water is given them twice a day and oyster shells and
grit are kept before them at all times. The houses are
dry and warm and the fowls are fed only as much as
they will eat up clean.

42 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

Watch the Flock—The feeder cannot depend on
rules or rations except in a general way. He must
learn to watch closely and adapt the food to the con-
ditions. He may judge of the state of flesh by picking
up the birds or passing his hand over them while at
roost. Hens sagging down behind, beefy and lazy can
be detected any time at a glance. They should be
dieted or sent to market. When hens are too thin the
breastbone is sharp. Hens tend to get too fat when
not laying or sitting, also on approach of cold weather
in fall. The older the fowls the more likely to get
overfat. Heating foods, like corn, should be reduced
in quantity at the approach of a warm spell. The
condition of a flock, the weather, and the work the
fowls are doing governs the ration. It is not needful
to be constantly figuring out the nutritive rations, ete.,
if the owner has his experienced eye on the birds them-
selves, and understands the varied needs of his flock.

The droppings are an important indication, writes
Dr. Woods: “The droppings should be of sufficient
consistency to hold their shape, but should not be too
solid. In color they should be dark, tapering off into
grayish and white. If the droppings are watery and
dark with red splashes of mucus in them, feed less meat
food. If droppings are soft or pasty and yellowish or
brownish, feed more meat and less starchy food.
Greenish watery diarrhea should always lead to a
careful investigation of the sanitary conditions and the
condition of the food and water. It is a danger signal.”

Feed Good Hens—With hens, as with cows, beyond
a certain limit, all depends on the individual animal
or bird, not on the feeding. The illustration, Figure
4, A Good Layer, shows a hen which laid 237 large
eggs in a year. The picture, Figure 5, of A Poor
Layer depicts another member of the same flock which
laid only thirty-four eges in the same period. A record

NUTRITION FOR LAYERS 43

of the best layers is being kept at the Maine experi-
ment station with the aid of trap nests. From the

Fig. 4—a GOOD LAYER

best hens will be raised both cockerels and pullets with
the aim of building a strain remarkable for heavy

Fig. 5—a poor LAYER :

laying. Some of the poor hens might have been picked
out on sight as lazy and beefy in appearance, but in

dt POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

other cases the bad layers seemed as smart, well formed
and vigorous as any. The trap, nest is the only sure
way unless each hen tested can be kept with a flock of
another breed laying eggs of different color.

Feeding in Molting Season—Experiments in feed-
ing fowls conducted by the Rhode Island experiment
station seem to indicate that the ordinary rations
supplied to laying hens confined in yards during the
molting season are deficient in animal food material.
The importance and value of meat and green bone in
furnishing animal protein to balance the stfrehy grains
is evidenced by largely increased egg production cf the
fowls fed upon a narrow ration, as compared with that
of fowls receiving a wide or even a medium ration.

Whole or Ground Grain—Conclusions of the New
York experiment station: Two lots of laying hens, of
large and small breeds respectively, having their grain
food only dry and whole, ate more food at greater cost
per fowl and for the live weight than did two similar
lots having about thirty-seven per cent of their grain
ground and moistened.

A pen of Leghorns, which had for the year thirty-
seven per cent of their food ground and moistened
grain, produced eggs at a greater profit than did an
exactly similar pen fed whole grain.

Of two like pens of Cochins, the one fed whole
grain produced eggs at much less cost than did the pen
having ground grain, which result is attributed partly
to the exercise assured in feeding whole grain.

With the kinds of whole grain ordinarily available
it is not possible to feed a largely grain ration having
as narrow a nutritive ratio—that is, containing as large
a proportion of the nitrogenous food constituents
is perhaps necessary for best results from laying hens.

By using some of the highly nitrogenous by-prod-
ucts (such as cottonseed meal, pea meal, gluten feed,

as

NUTRITION FOR LAYERS 45

ete.) with ground grain, it is possible to feed a some-
what narrow ration without feeding an excessive amount
of meat.

With hens fed similar rations, when the hens of
smaller breeds give only the same egg yield as the hens
of larger breeds, the eggs are more cheaply produced by
the smaller hens, but considering the cost of raising and
the ultimate poultry value of the hens, the profits will
be equally or more favorable for the larger hens.

What to Do with Fat Hens—When a hen becomes
very fat, she is not only a poor layer, but will become
broody, droopy at times, have leg weakness, and be
unfit for anything but the pot. Such hens should be
fed only once, at night. The meal should consist of a
pound of lean meat to twenty hens, with a handful of
grain scattered for them to hunt up. They will then
be hungry through the day, and search for food, while
the inducement of a few grains thrown out at night
will cause them to keep at work until late. Meat con-
tains little of the fat producing elements, if lean, and
will greatly promote laying as soon as the surplus fat
is removed, which can only be done by compelling the
hens to exercise. If the hens are kept on this exercise
diet for a week or ten days, they will be in better health
afterwards; and if they lay well, the one meal per day
may be continued.

A Fowl’s Digestive Machine—The gullet takes
root from the back of the beak, runs along the neck,
behin1 the windpipe, and ends in the abdomen, a little
to the left. In the hen there exist three divisions or
receptacles for food. The first one is the crop, which
receives food as soon as swallowed. A little farther
along in the breast is the gullet, which contracts and
expands so as to form a second receptacle, with thick
walls. Next we find the third receptacle, very mus-
cular and large, known as the gizzard.

46 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

The small stones swallowed by the fowl are found
in the gizzard, and naturalists say they facilitate the
operation of digestion by the contracting of the mus-
cular lining, causing the stones to grind the food. This
last stomach is formed by a thick and very strong
muscular membrane, the external fibers of which are
of a tendonous nature. The internal membrane which
lines the gizzard is very thin, fibrous and hard. It
secretes a coloring matter, which appears to have the
property to dissolve stones, principally carbonate of
lime. Flint requires a longer process. Liquids taken
as drink appear to be absorbed by the first and second
stomachs; they are never found in the gizzard unless
in case of disease. It is worthy of remark that a hen
eats, when in health, about two ounces of limy or flinty
sand a day. The salivary glands are small in a towl
and produce a liquid thick and slimy, but the quantity
is very small.

The liver is very large and divided into two lobes
of equal size. The gall bladder is attached to the liver
and contains a thick bile, very bitter. The pancreas
pours a fluid into the intestines by two small tubes.
The spleen is very small, of cylindrical shape and placed
behind the liver. Its function seems to be to keep in
reserve and prepare the blood used as one of the secre-
tions necessary to digestion. The circulatory apparatus
is not different from that of animals. The heart has
four cavities and the arteries are the same.

In Figure 6 the abdominal muscles have been
removed, as well as the sternum, heart, trachea, the
greater portion of the neck, and all the head except the
lower jaw, wlich has been turned aside to show the
tongue, the pharynx and the entrance to the larynx.
The left lobe of the liver, succentrie ventricle, gizzard
and intestinal mass have been pushed to the right
to exhibit the different portions of the alimentary

NUTRITION FOR LAYERS 4”

canal and to expose the ovary and oviduct. 1, tongue;
2, pharynx; 3, first portion of the oesophagus; 4,

Fig. 6—ANATOMY OF A FowL (Howard)
crop; 5, second portion of the oesophagus ; 6, succentric
ventricle; 7, gizzard; 8, origin of the duodenum; 9,
first branch of the duodenal flexure; 10, second branch

45 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

of the same; 11, origin of the floating portion of the
small intestine; 12, small intestine; 13, free extremities
of the caeca; 14, insertion of these two organs into the
intestinal tube; 15, rectum; 16, cloaca; 17, anus; 18,
mesentery; 19, left lobe of the liver; 20, right lobe;
21, gall bladder; 22, insertion of the pancreatic and
biliary ducts; 23, pancreas; 24, lung; 25, ovary (in a
state of atrophy; fowl not laying); 26, oviduct.

Poultry Facts—The body of a fowl is composed of
more than half water. For 100 hens about sixteen
quarts of clean water per day are required. In each
dozen eggs there is about a pint of water.

Each 1000 pounds live weight laying hens of
average size require from sixty-five to seventy pounds
of grain food per day. On this ration the hen could
be expected to produce from sixteen to thirty pounds
of eggs. One pound of eggs may be produced from
about three-fourths pound of water-free food, and one
pound of dry matter of eggs corresponds to each 8.8
pounds of water-free food. For the 1000 pounds
weight of hens of the larger breeds, forty to fifty
pounds of grain food per day, containing about thirty-
four pounds of water-free food, is sufficient. The pro-
portion of nutrients should be about six pounds
digestible protein, fourteen pounds digestible nitrogen-
free extract and two pounds digestible fat.

A hen of the large breeds, when laying, requires
about four and one-quarter ounces of food per day;
Leghorns, while laying, require about three and one-
half ounces of food per day. Chickens require more
food in proportion to their weight than older fowls, or
about 10.6 pounds to every 100 pounds live weight per
day when very young. At two pounds weight, the
ration required drops to 7.5 pounds; at three pounds
weight to 6.4 pounds; at six pounds weight to 4.9
pounds; at seven pounds weight to 4.7 pounds per day.

NUTRITION FOR LAYERS 49

These rations are for grain feed; green food and extras
should also be fed.

Various Grains—Sorghum seed is somewhat like
corn in composition and effect. Such grains as Kafir
corn, milo maize, millet, durra, chicken corn, may be
fed to some extent in place of wheat for variety.
Some of these grains are small and make good chick
food or a good scratching food for fowls. Hulled
broom corn seed is about equal to wheat.

Standard Grains—Corn is heating and fattening.
It should be balanced with meat, bone, bran, gluten,
linseed and such feeds. Cracked corn if fed dry should
be sifted to prevent waste. Corn on the cob is a handy
farm feed and affords some exercise. Corn or meal
which has been injured by heating and souring should
never be given young chickens.

Wheat is considered the safest grain, but is usually
more expensive than corn. Number 2 wheat if bought
with care is nearly equal in results to Number 1, if
merely small, broken or scorched. But screenings con-
tain many seeds not eaten by the fowls, while sour or
burned wheat is not satisfactory. Bran, shorts and
middlings are good with corn meal but not relished
alone. Waste bread from bakeries, soaked and mixed
with middlings, is good for fowls and chicks.

Oats are fed chiefly for variety, not being well
liked on account of the husk, unless clipped, when they
are relished and make one of the best of whole grains
to produce eggs. They are a good offset to corn and
nearly as nutritious as wheat. Coarse oatmeal and
rolled oats are good chick food and easily fed dry.

Barley is much like wheat in results but is less
relished. It need not be fed unless it can be had cheap.
Barley shorts are. very nutritious.

Buckwheat is fattening and quite well liked by
fowls, but not much used except where it is especially

oU POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

low in price or home raised. Buckwheat middlings are
rich in egg material and a good mixture with corn
meal. The same may be said of rye bran, but whole
rye is thought to cause bowel trouble if fed freely.

Homemade Egg Food—The majority of egg foods
are composed of those elements that enter into the com-
position of an egg, and their success depends upon the
fact that they supply material which is often overlooked
by those who keep poultry. For instance, ground bone,
ground meat, salt and charcoal are ingredients—the
first to supply the phosphates; the second the albumen ;
the third, that which is not often supplied, and the
fourth a corrective. Hence two pounds of ground
bones, two pounds of ground meat, four ounces of salt, .
a pound of charcoal, two pounds of linseed meal, with
an ounce each of sulphur, baking soda and ginger,
makes a very good egg food, which may-be given to
six fowls daily, using a gill mixed with other food.

gg Producer—Exhaustive experiments have
proved that the use of an egg stimulant, while it forces
the pullets to earlier laying, does not increase the total
yearly egg yield and that there is no profit in its use.
For those who wish to use something of the kind, the
following formula may be prepared for about thirty-five
cents and will give an egg producer as effective as
anything: Cantharides, ninety grains; ginger, thirty
ounces; gentian, one and one-half ounces; capsicum,
six ounces; Venetian red, two ounces; sulphur, three
ounces; charcoal, one ounce; oil meal, thirty ounces;
all should be ground finely and well mixed. Use one
and one-half teaspoonfuls to the quart of hot mash,
which is enough for twelve average fowls.

Condition powders are mainly composed of stim-
ulating, spice-lke drugs, such as gentian, fenugreek,
anise seed, ginger, ete. The effects are because of the
tonic or stimulating nature of the materials employed.

CHAPTER V
SPECIAL FOODS
Cue to high prices of grain, which make large

inroads into the receipts of poultry keepers who

must buy a large proportion of the feed, the

question has often been asked if something could
not be used in place of so much grain. The hen has
a small crop and cannot make use of a great amount
of coarse, bulky foods as can cows and other ruminants.
The grain ration can be advantageously cut down one-
fourth or more by the liberal use of clover and vegeta-
bles, but where this is done a large proportion of the
wheat bran, which is also bulky food, should be left out.

Very finely cut clover or alfalfa, or clover meal, can
be steamed and mixed with the mash, or the noon ration
may consist of steamed clover to which is added some
wheat middlings and corn meal. Vegetables can be
fed either green or boiled and mixed with the mash.
Corn silage makes an occasional relish and is very cheap.
Whole grain should be fed at least once a day. Barley
is sometimes one of the most economical feeds to buy
and is very good fed either ground or whole. Meat
scraps or green cut bone are cheap considering the
matter which they. contain.

Animal Matter—It is well known that poultry
when allowed to range at will eat considerable quanti-
ties of animal matter in the form of insects, worms, etc.

How necessary this animal matter is to the health
of fowls, and especially ducks, was strikingly brought
out by experiments at the New York state experiment
station. Two lots each of chickens and ducks, as nearly
alike as possible, were used in these experiments. One

52 POULTRY FEELING AND FATTENING

lot in each case was fed a ration of mixed grains and
skimmilk or curd, containing no animal matter, the
other ration of mixed grains, with animal meal and
fresh bones or dried blood. The two rations were about
equally well balanced, although the “animal matter”
ration contained a little less protein than the “vegetable
matter” ration. The distinctive difference between the
two rations was that in the one case two-fifths to one-
half of the protein came from animal sources, while in
the other it all came froin vegetable sources. ‘Two
trials were made with chickens.

In each trial more food was eaten by the lot
receiving animal protein, the gain in weight was more
rapid, maturity was reached earlier, less food was
required for each pound of gain, and the cost of gain
was less.

During the first twelve weeks of the first trial
(starting with chickens one-half week old) the chicks
on animal meal gained fifty-six per cent more than
those on the vegetable dict, although they ate only
thirty-six per cent more: they required half a pound
less of dry matter to gain one pound, and each pound
of gain cost only four and one-quarter cents, as com-
pared with five and one-fifth cents for the grain-
fed birds.

During the next cight weeks the cost of gain was
seven and one-half cents and eleven and one-fifth cents,
respectively. The animal-meal chicks reached two
pounds in weight more than five weeks before th:
others; they reached three pounds more than eigh'
weeks sooner, and three pullets of the lot began layin™
four weeks earlier than any among the grain-fed bird:.

With the second lot of chicks, starting at six week
of age, the differences were in the same direction,
though not quite so striking, thus showing that the great
advantage of the animal nitrogen is in promoting

SPECIAL FOODS 5d

quick, healthy growth and early maturity rather than
increasing the tendency to fatten. (See Figure 7.)
The results were most convincing, almost startling,
in the case of ducklings fed the contrasted ration.
Before the experiment had been long under way it was
noticed that the animal-meal birds were developing
rapidly and evenly, but the grain-fed ducklings were
becoming thin and uneven in size. It was sometimes
almost pitiful to see the long-necked, scrawny, grain-
fed birds, with troughs full of good, apparently whole-
some food before them, standing on the alert and

Total weight attained. Cost of food far
15 ( Pound gain.

Meat Grain

Dry matter in food

for | pound ae Mear
3.1lbs, Meat

Grain

52lbs. Grain
Fig. 7—MEAT AND GRAIN COMPARED

scrambling in hot haste after the unlucky grasshopper
or fly which ventured into their pen, while the con-
tented-looking meat-fed ducks lay lazily in the sun
and paid no attention to buzzing bee or crawling beetle.
The thirty-two meat-fed birds lived and thrived, but
the vegetable-fed birds dropped off one by one, starved
to death through lack of animal food, so that only
twenty of the thirty-three were alive at the close of the
fifteenth week of contrasted feeding. They were then
fed for four weeks on the meat meal ration and made
nearly as rapid gains as the other lot at the same size
two months before, but they never quite overcame the
disadvantage of their bad start on grains alone.

In conclusion, then, it may be said that rations
in which from forty to fifty per cent of the protein was

5+ POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

supplied by animal food gave more economical results
than rations drawing most of their protein from vege-
table sources. The chief advantage was in the pro-
duction of rapid growth, although the cost of production
is also in its favor. While inferior palatability may
have had something to do with the marked results,
especially with the ducks, the whole bearing of these
experiments and others not yet reported seems to
indicate that the superiority of the one ration is due
to the presence in it of animal food.

Ducklings certainly need meat or animal food in
some form. James Rankin, the veteran Massachusetts
duck raiser, feeds one part hard-boiled eggs and three
parts stale bread crumbs the first three or four days.
After that he gives equal parts wheat bran, corn meal
and boiled potatoes with a little beef scrap. The largest
duck raiser on Long Island, A. J. Hallock, feeds equal
portions of wheat middlings, corn meal, crackers or
bread crumbs with green food for the first week. After
this the ration is made of four parts corn meal, two
of bran, one of middlings, one of beef scrap and about
four parts green food. A handful of sharp sand is
added to each quart of the mixture.

Fresh Green Bone—Green bones are not used as
extensively as they should be, because grain can be
obtained with less difficulty, but as egg producing
material, the bone is far superior to grain; nor does
the bone really cost more than grain in some sections.
Bones fresh from the butcher have more or less meat
adhering, and the more of such meat the better, as it
will cost no more per pound than the bone, while the
combination of both meat and bone is almost a perfect
food from which to produce eggs.

If the farmer can get two extra eggs per week from
each hen in winter, he will make a large profit, but if
the product is increased only one egg per week in

SPECIAL FOODS Sy)

winter, that one egg will pay for all the food she will
consume, so it pays to feed the material that will induce
egg production. It is frequently the case that poultry
receive a suflicient quantity of food but not of the
“ proper kind to induce egg production.

A pound of green cut bone per day is sufficient for
sixteen hens and such quantity ought not to cost over
one cent. Where fowls have yard range one quart of
grain at night and one pound of cut bone should be
sufficient for sixteen hens per day in winter. In
summer only the bone need be fed. Such a diet pro-
vides fat, starch, nitrogen, phosphates, lime and all the
substances required for egg production. As eggs sell
for about three cents in winter, it is plain that it is
cheaper to feed bone than grain. In this connection
a bone cutter will be found necessary, which may reduce
the profits the first winter, but where a cutter is first
introduced among a community of poultry keepers it
is more than likely cut bone can be sold by the pound
to neighbors.

At the Ohio state university an experiment was
made to test the value of green bone as a food for
laying hens in connection with oyster shells and gravel.
The trial was made with four divisions and two pens
in each division, one of old hens and one of pullets,
ten to each pen; first division were fed green cut bone,
crushed oyster shells and gravel, second division received
green cut bone and gravel, third division crushed
oyster shells and gravel, fourth division gravel only.
In the first the ten pullets laid 140 eggs, the ten
hens sixty-four, total 204; second division pullets
115, hens eighty, total 195; third division, pullets
seventy-nine, hens four, total eighty-three; fourth
division, pullets fifty-two, hens thirteen, total sixty-five.

The first division received fourteen pounds raw
cut bone, two pounds oyster shells and all the gravel

ob POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

they wanted. Second division received fourteen pounds
raw cut bone and all the gravel they wanted. Third
division received six pounds oyster shells and gravel.
Fourth division received nothing but gravel. Counting
bone at three cents per pound and shells at two cents,
the hens fed with cut bone more than doubled in value
of eges. There was enough difference in those fed
shells to more than pay for the shell, but left a narrow
margin when fed with bone. Those fed bone more
than doubled on those fed nothing but gravel, or by the
test twenty cents per pound could have been paid for
the cut bone, while eges brought twenty-five cents per
dozen. The hens that received the bone possessed a
much better plumage and wintered much the better.

It is a highly concentrated food and must be used
cautiously. The only danger hes in feeding too much
or in feeding that which is sour or moldy. The one
results in forcing the chicks or fowls “olf their feed,”
and in leg troubles, and the other in diarrhea and bowel
complaints. The maximum ration for laying hens is
one-half ounce per day.

The use of green cut bone not only increases eg:
production, but lessens the food cost of eggs. This i
very clearly shown by an experiment carried out by the
Hatch experiment station of Massachusetts a few years
ago with two lots of hens and pullets, nineteen in each
lot, and continuing seventy-nine days from February 9.
The food for one lot was in pounds as follows: Whole

wheat 99.5, oats 100, wheat bran 18.5, wheat middlings
18.5, Chicago gluten meal 18.5, ground clover 18.5,
green cut bone 10, total 283.5, cost $3.25, nutritive
ratio 1 to 4.8. The other lot received essentially the
same food, except that in place of the green bone it
got 9.7 pounds animal meal. The total food was 287
pounds, cost $3.26, nutritive ratio 1 to 4.9. The lot
receiving green cut bone laid 269 eees at a eost of .940

OS

iz)

SPECIAL FOODS 57

pound dry matter in food per egg and 1.2 cents for
food consumed, while the other lot laid 145 eggs at a
cost of 1.796 pounds dry matter and 2.2 cents for food
consumed. This included the cost of labor for cutting
the bones.

Quite similar results were obtained in more recent
experiments by the New York experiment station.
Here it was found that for laying hens the rations
containing animal food proved superior to others in
which all the organic matter was derived from vegetable _
sources. The hens fed green cut bone laid more eggs
and at a less cost per egg for food consumed. Pulleta
raised on food containing considerable bone began
laying much earlier than those fed corresponding
rations made up of vegetable food. This point is of
the greatest importance to poultrymen and farmers
who know of the difficulty of getting late hatched
pullets started to laying before cold weather sets in.
Once get them laying, and with good food, care and
warm quarters they will lay well during the late fall
and early winter, when eggs are highest, but if they
cannot be started before the holidays it is almost impos-
sible to get any profit out of them before every other
hen and pullet starts laying toward spring and the price
of eggs goes down with a thud.

For raising young chicks and ducks green cut bone
as a food has no equal. Nothing will approach it in
putting on growth and weight, more particularly with
ducklings than with chicks. Ducklings without an
abundant supply of animal protein in the ration,
together with a liberal proportion of vegetable matter,
seem unable to make any approximation to their
normally rapid and most profitable growth.

Scrap bone is obtained at markets or packing
houses, and the short soft bones with meat adhering to
them are preferred. These are ground up in machines

58 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

made on purpose, which are not expensive. The cut
bone may be mixed and fed in the mash, but it is
preferable to feed it alone. Fowls and chicks are very
fond of it, and it is the best exerciser for them.
Scatter it at noon in the straw or litter on the floor and
there will be such a scratching for it as you have
seldom seen. It is a good practice to feed it three times
a week, although a little may be given daily. It should
be fed at a recular hour on certain days, for when the
hens get accustomed to it they are uneasy unless it is
given them at the expected time. The only precautions
necessary to observe are never feed too much, nor any
which is tainted.

The West Virginia experiment station has com-
pared the value of bone and meat meal for egg produc-
tion, with results decidedly in favor of the green bone.

During a period of four months, beginning
October 25, seventeen Plymouth Rock hens fed the fresh
bone laid 650 eggs of an average weight of 11.75
pounds per 100, while a similar number fed meat meal
in their ration laid 554 eges, weighing 11.94 pounds
per 100. The fowls fed fresh ground meat and bone
also increased more in weight and were much healthier
during the experiment, four of the others having died,
and being replaced by others. As this experiment was
made with only one sample of meat meal the results
cannot be considered conclusive.

Horseflesh—In Anglo-Saxon communities there is
a strong prejudice against horseflesh as food. The
objection, however, can scarcely apply to the use of it
as poultry food, since fowls consume far less attractive
food in the course of their foraging and without injury
to the egg and meat product. Writes J. J. I. Gregory,
a veteran agriculturist of national reputation:

“Some twenty years ago, the horse of a neighbor
having met with an accident had to be killed. The

SPECIAL FOODS 59

animal was perfectly healthy and it occurred to me that
his flesh would serve excellently for hen feed. I ac-
cordingly offered a bag of meal for such parts of the
carcass as I might choose to take, provided the owner
would land the flesh on my place. The bargain was
made, and the body having already been skinned, I
found no great difficulty by the use of saw and knife
in cutting up the largest part of the remains. These
as soon as landed I packed in snow (it was early
winter) in a couple of large sugar boxes which I kept
out of doors with covers to protect from rain. The
flesh lasted as the animal food for eight hens about
through cold weather. I fed it raw, cutting it fine.
Under it the hens were healthy and laid reraarkably
well, the eight averaging six eggs a day throughout the
winter. The meat was fed very liberally. But not
everyone indorses raising eggs on horse meat.

“There was a society of old retired sea captains
who used to meet at their rendezvous over the bank
daily, to discuss the affairs of the world and express
their emphatic opinions on the degenerate state of
matters and things in these latter days. Honest old
sea dogs that they were, they decided that Gregory
ought to be prosecuted for selling eggs from hens fed
on horse meat! It is but the other day an intelligent
man asked me my opinion on the subject, stating that a
neighbor was about to kill a horse too old for service.
That an intelligent man should ask such a question
showed how widespread is a ridiculous prejudice.

“What is the difference between the food of a
horse and the food of a cow or ox? Then can there be
any difference between the flesh of either of them from
a health standpoint? If it be conceded that it is but a
matter of shrinking on our part from unaccustomed
food, let us bear in mind that no hen has thus far been
found troubled by any such qualms. It is certainly

6U POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

true that some horses die from diseases whose flesh we
would not care to feed, but this would make but a
fraction of their number unsuitable for hen feed, for if
properly attended to the great number that it becomes
necessary to kill because of injury through accidents,
and even the many who die from colic, if immediately
dressed, as well as the large proportion whose lives are
taken because they outgrow their usefulness, all these
can be more profitably utilized by sending them to the
hencoop rather than to the manure pile. Where the
poultry keeper lives near fertilizer works he has oppor-
tunities to secure his hen meat as he wants it and at
a very low figure.”

Fish and Turtle—When I get fish I cook it and
mix it with the mash, using less of the shorts. From
January to May I can get fish once and sometimes
twice a week. While pumpkins last I feed raw all the
fowls will eat, also cook and mix them with the mash.
I also have a pen in which I put muck and fresh fish.
The hens pick out the maggots as they come to the top
and I take the rest for fertilizer. I feed the young
chicks, until they are old enough to leave the brooder,
ground parched corn with a little shorts and all the
insects and worms I can find. Fresh water, in iron
dishes, is kept where they can get it all the time, and
it is changed several times each day. I often dust
laying and sitting hens with flowers of sulphur and
have no lice or fleas to speak of at any time of year.
I sometimes find a soft-shelled turtle, which I cook,
chop up and mix thoroughly with shorts. Fish I some-
times feed raw, chopping it very fine and mixing with
shorts. I grind cabbage in a meat chopper and mix
with shorts for the little chicks in the brooder.—
[D. D. Doane, Florida.

Whey Cream—One day, noticing chickens standing
on the edge of the whey tub and pecking at the dried

. By fe
SPECIAL FOODS 61

cream on the sides, I skimmed some and placed in a
dish. They ate it all eagerly, although they were well-
fed chicks, and subsequent. feedings convinced me that
it formed a valuable addition to their diet. On cooking,
their flesh was exceedingly sweet and tender, and in
no way had an oily taste, which many might raise as a
possible objection. Doubtless if fowls are kept in close
confinement and given little else but this waste cream,
a characteristic oily flavor to their flesh might result.
As it was waste matter that cost nothing, I considered
its utilization in this direction a most profitable one.
As is generally known in cheese manufacturing districts,
all of the cream from whole milk cannot be worked into
full stock cheese. It is this small per cent of unavoid-
able waste, rising in the whey tub and either going to
the hogs, or as a rendered product being utilized as
cheese dressing, that I recommend all who can to try
on growing chicks —[G. E. Newell.

Skimmilk—One hundred pounds of skimmilk will
make as many pounds of eggs or poultry as it will of
pork or veal. With me the hen is the only variety of
fowl that will use skimmilk. Geese and turkeys won't.
touch it—[M. L. B., Vermont.

Bulky Food—Fowls need bulky food. For not
only are bulky foods needed for the special forms of
nutriment they contain, but to distend the crop and
enable the fowls the better to obtain the nutriment
from more condensed foods. Such foods as finely cut
grass, clover and the like have a value greater than
their analysis would indicate. Fed upon such foods
in connection with more condensed articles of diet,
fowls seldom contract the bad habit of feather pulling.
This habit seems to be due to two causes: lack of
animal matter and lack of bulky food. Given these
two elements and feather pulling would hardly be
known, unless it was introduced into the flock through

62 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

some vicious individual which first contracted "it
through lack of these forms of food Such foods will
frequently put a stop to the habit after it has been
contracted.—[ H. 8. Babcock, Providence County, R. TL.

Green Feed—Its value in abundance for laying
hens is strikingly shown in an investigation made by
the West Virginia experiment station. Forty White
Leghorn hens and four cocks were divided into two
similar flocks and placed in two houses, side by side,
the middle of July. Both flocks were allowed runs
fifteen feet wide and 100 feet long, and both had access
at all times to such grass and herbage as grew in the
runs. In addition to this, one flock received an abund-
ance of green food. At the end of the year, the fowls
which had the green food had laid two dozen more eggs
per hen than the other.

Clover Pasture—In my locality, where we usually
have some warm weather and but little snow during
November and December, it pays me to sow crimson
clover for pasture for the poultry. The land which 1
use for market gardening adjoins my poultry yards,
and my plan is to sow crimson clover as a catch crop
between the rows of garden vegetables, then when the
vegetables are gathered give the fowls the range of the
field during the pleasant weather of the late fall and
early winter when the other grasses do not supply green
food for them. Crimson clover seems to be especially
adapted to this purpose, as, unlike other clover, it
remains green after the hard frosts of early winter.
If it has been found that the crimson clover does not
endure the winter in your section, then sow a
little rye with the clover, and if the clover winter-
kills, the rye will survive. With such a pasture for
the hens now and some clover rowen dried and put
away for later use, you are in. the way to make a good
profit from the hens next winter—[W. HH. Jenkins.

SPECIAL FOODS 63

Special Feed Crops—Young lettuce leaves will add
greatly to the health and growth of the chickens.
Onions should also be grown and kept for feeding. If
chopped moderately fine, they will be eagerly consumed
by fowls. Tobacco should also be grown and used to
keep the stock free from lice. Pull the plants before
frost, and hang them in the barn or shed to dry. A
handful of the leaves in the nests of sitting hens will
add a great deal to their comfort and more to that of
the young. Beans, well cooked, either whole or ground,
will help fill up the list of foods. Rape seed is easily
raised, and would be useful for choice young chickens.
Seeds of the common millet, Golden millet, sorghum
and broom corn will make a variety in the list of good,
cheap foods. Egyptian corn, a kind of sorghum, is
valuable for young or old fowls. Barley, rye and oats
are all acceptable to poultry—[E. M. Hess.

Cabbage—My experience with cabbage is that about
the very best use one can make of loose heads is to
make them up in sauerkraut; then as soon as worked a
little, put where it will freeze, so as to keep them.
Use it once a day as a part ration of food. They
relish it very much. In this way one can supply a
great amount of extra rations for the poultry that
usually goes to waste. Put away in this way, one has
a fresh supply in a small compass until grass comes.
Use but little salt; for one large barrel I use only a
teacupful. Pound it well, put heavy weights on and
it will keep until warm weather. Keep in an out-
building because of the odor.—[D. E. Hale, Allegheny
County, Pa.

Mangels—The yield of this beet, according to the
amount of ground taken up by it and the time and
expense of cultivating, is immense. It is little trouble
to harvest and easy to keep in the winter, either in pits
or in the cellar. If it is desirable to feed raw, the

6+ POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

chickens will enjoy picking out the inside, if the beet is
split from crown to root. If cooked, it can be cut or
chopped and mixed with the other steamed or cooked
food.—[J. L. Irwin, Nemaha County, Kan.

Onions will quickly affect flavor of eggs or meat.
So will muskrats. After removing the pelts of some
that I caught one winter the carcasses were thrown
in a field not far from the barn, where the hens ranged
and fed on the meat. This produced such a musky
flavor in the eggs that afterward care was observed to
keep the dead rats out of the hens’ reach. At a later
period I purchased a quarter of beef from a farmer
who, while fattening a number of steers, fed a large
quantity of turnips. These so tainted the meat that
it was decidedly distasteful, and when cooking there
was a pronounced smell of turnips—T[S., Schuylkill
County, Pa.

Rice—While living in California, I was quite
largely engaged for about ten years in raising poultry
for market, both with incubators and with hens. I had
trouble with young chicks on account of more or less
diarrhea, sometimes but little, and again considerable,
but always some loss from it. Since coming to the
islands, we have not been in the business extensively,
but raise more or less each year. For three or four
weeks we feed on broken rice and milk. We never
have a case of diarrhea here or a sick chick, although
they have to be kept in close quarters on account of the
mongoose, but of course have to be kept clean, but are
never let outside of wire fence until fully grown. If
we had known the value of rice as a feed for starting
young chicks, when in the business in California, it
would have been several hundred dollars in our pockets,
if not thousands.—[I. 8. Garnett, Hawaii.

Nuts—When one has an oversupply of nuts, espe
cially black walnuts and butternuts, they can be used

SPECIAL FOODS 65

to good advantage among the poultry, serving the pur-
pose of meat, the oil in the nuts being of the same
nature. Crack them rather fine and the fowls will
pick the shells clean in a short time.—[ Marion Meade,
Tllinois. :

Odds and Hnds—Nothing excels the scraps which
accumulate on the table, including, as they generally
do, vegetables, meat, ete. A farmer’s table yields in
the course of a year a large amount of bones, which,
when ground or chopped fine, produce food far more
valuable than grain for egg production.

Various Foods—Old or damaged cheese is a good
egg food. Popped corn from the factories is a cheap
food, being equal to raw corn, pound for pound. If
the corn is sugared, so much the better for fattening.
Refuse bread, cake and crackers make convenient food
for chicks and take the place of as many pounds of
grain. Scorched grain at about two-thirds full price
will do for a part of the ration, if not so badly burned
that part will be left on the ground. Grain screenings
are of doubtful value for fowls, but chicks will eat
most of the seeds.

Ground tankage from tallow and fertilizer fac-
tories is the cheapest animal food, but if tainted or
diseased, will cause trouble. The same may be said
of dried blood. Raw lights and offal from the
slaughter house often cause disease, but are safe if
cooked thoroughly. If fed raw, care should be taken
to examine before feeding for traces of disease.

Gluten meal is made from the chit or nitrogenous
part of the corn grain and is the refuse from the
manufacture of cornstarch. It contains nearly thirty
per cent nitrogenous matter, whereas the pure corn
meal contains only about nine per cent. Cottonseed
meal and linseed meal of course are entirely different
articles, but they are both very rich, cottonseed meal

66 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

containing about forty per cent of nitrogenous matter,
and linseed meal fully thirty per cent. The new
process linseed meal can be used without bad effects to
increase eve production if judiciously fed, but the old
process linseed meal, containing ten per cent of fat or
oil, is too fattening for layers. This is one objection
to cottonseed meal, which has twelve to thirteen per cent
of fat, whereas the gluten meal has only about five per
cent of oil. Proper care in feeding either of these
concentrated meals will enable you to use them in the
poultry yard. Begin feeding them very lightly, and
increase as experience shows you can safely do. Never
feed such rich food exclusively—give it in connection
with a variety of other stuff.

Garbage from village or city swill will do to feed
once a day to hens, if it is well cooked and mixed with
ground feed of some kind. As long as hens thrive on
this feed and remain in good health there is no
objection to feeding it.

Sour food induces bowel trouble. Don’t leave any
about. Feed only what will be eaten within twenty
minutes.

Cider pomace will be eaten quite freely by fowls
in winter and serves the same purpose as roots or green
food, at less cost. Preserve the pomace in hogsheads
or tight barrels and press down the contents with
jackscrews or barrel headers.

CHAPTER VI
TO FINISH AND DRESS CAPONS

r HE price of dressed capons in season is nearly
equal to that of broilers, while the cost per
pound to produce is far less. On many farms,
a number of young cockerels are kept through

the winter, growing but slowly and consuming their full
value in grain by February. If these had been capon-
ized the only added cost would have been a few minutes’
time and the loss of perhaps one bird in forty as the
result of accidents in operating, while the capon would
weigh at maturity nearly twice as much as the cockerel
and bring five to ten cents more per pound because of
ais more soft and rich flavored meat.

The idea applies especially well to late hatched
and autumn chickens which are too small to sell during
the holiday season. The pullets will make prime
summer layers, and the cockerels caponized will come
into market at the time when capon quotations are at
their best, in late spring and early summer. If the
house is warm and the winter not too severe they will
grow fairly well all winter and will increase in weight
rapidly as soon as milder weather begins. No surplus
males should be kept over winter uncaponized.

Finishing Capons—The plan described below is
that used at the Ontario experimental farm, as relate
by W. R. Graham. The illustration, Figure 8, shows
a capon ready for market. “The rations tend to pro-
duce a light, cream-colored flesh, which is in demand
in the English markets and the high class Canadian
trade. Where yellow flesh is in demand the addition
of a small proportion of yellow carrots, say one-sixth
of the ration, would tend to deepen the color. Cotton-
seed meal has the same tendency.

Vig. 8—CaroN DRESSHD FOR MARKET

TO FINISH AND DRESS CAPONS 69

“Chickens and capons can be fattened to best
advantage by confining them in small coops for three
or four weeks previous to killing. The ordinary coops
used for fattening purposes are made six and one-half
feet long by sixteen inches square, inside measurement.
- Each crate is divided into three compartments and each
compartment usually holds four chickens. The crates
are made of slats about one and one-half inches wide
and one-half inch thick. The slats run lengthwise of
the coop on the top, bottom and back, the front being
upright, with a small door arranged in each compart-
ment. This coop we have found easily cleaned and
convenient. Small V-shaped troughs are arranged in
front, from which the fowls are fed and watered. All
our experiments tend to show that this is the best way
to fatten fowls. They do better than when at large,
or when confined to small pens.

“The feed should be of ground grain dampened
with skimmilk or meat broth. Of eight different
rations tried here for fattening purposes, we have found
the following two the best: (a) Two parts ground
corn, two parts ground buckwheat and one part fine
ground oats, all by weight; (b) two pounds ground
corn, two parts ground oats and two parts cooked pota-
toes, all by weight. Ration a is relished by the birds
and has made more rapid gains than b, but 0 ration
is less expensive and has produced gain at a less cost
per pound, while a has produced the most gain. In
districts where buckwheat can be purchased for about
thirty-five to forty cents per bushel, @ would be a very
advantageous ration to use.

“Our method is to feed these rations from the
small V-shaped trough for two weeks, after which the
birds are forced by the use of the cramming machine.
The machine-feeding lasts for about ten days. Nice,
plump, fat chickens can be produced without the

rae) POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

erammer if fed for about a week longer, but in our
trials they lack the uniformity and evenness of con-
dition which is characteristic of most crammed
chickens.”

How to Dress Capons—First be sure and not kill
them until crops are empty, and that they are fat. A
thin capon is not as good as an ordinary chicken,
because if not large or a proper capon they are not
wanted as capons or chickens either. Leave feathers
on neck from head down two-thirds way to the shoul-
ders. eave feathers on two first joints of wings.
Leave feathers on, tail and half way up the back.
Leave feathers on legs from knee joint two-thirds up
the hips. All the rest of the feathers come off.
Feathers that are removed should be saved and will
sell if kept dry and clean. Be careful-and keep the
eapon clean. Wrap paper around head. Appearances
add to the sale and of course price.

DRESSING AND SELLING CAPONS
By F. H. Valentine, New Jersey

The demand, consequently the market for capons,
is a peculiar one. While there is a very limited demand
during the entire year, the buik of them are sold
between the holidays and spring. The turkey holds the
place of honor at Thanksgiving, divides it with ducks
and geese at Christmas and New Year’s, and when these
are past, there is more inquiry for capons, which con-
tinues till April or May. So little call is there for
them outside of this season, that many, if not all
dealers, cease quoting prices at other times.

The profit in capons is a mooted question. It will
not pay to perform the operation on any but the larger
breeds, and there are many individuals and many
localities where it will not pay at all. While good
capons usually sell for somewhat higher prices than

TO FINISH AND DRESS CAPONS 7

roasting chickens, the difference in price between the
two is less than formerly. In Boston, it is said that
the larger part of the capons are dressed clean, and
sold as “south shore roasters.” A capon must be fed
for so long a time before marketing that the feed bill
eats up a large part of the extra price.

Many poultrymen say that there is more profit in
keeping pullets for eggs in the space that would be
occupied by capons. But locality and circumstance
must decide this point. A poor capon will bring no
more than a chicken. The small sizes of capons, about
five or six pounds, sell quite readily, but at lower prices.
The large ones, weighing nine, ten and twelve pounds,
or even more, bring higher prices per pound. They
take the place of turkeys to a considerable extent.

The methods of dressing vary somewhat for
different markets, and it is wise for the grower to learn
from the dealer or commission merchant in the market
to which he purposes shipping as to any special demands.
They are usually, and always for best markets, dry
picked. It is customary with most growers to leave
on the feathers of the neck, tail and wings; some leave
on more than others, but the carcass must show up its
plump proportions and rich yellow color. For they
must be well fattened. Sometimes I have seen capons
in market, which were well grown and fattened, but
which had been scalded, badly dressed, feathers all off,
and which sold for no more than the same grade of
chickens. <A little extra care in dressing and packing
would have paid handsomely. Dry picking is some-
thing that it seems impossible to teach except by actual
practice. In short, it is a sort of knack with some
people.

Having them well dressed and thoroughly cooled,
packing for shipment is important. Attractive appear-
ance must be secured. Much of the poultry sent to

>

=
cas)

POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

market is packed in barrels, but neat boxes are much
better. A box that holds a dozen large capons is a
very good size. They should be packed breasts up,
heads tucked under out of sight, in nice, even rows, so
that when the cover is removed, they may present an
attractive appearance. This goes a long way toward
making a sale, and at good prices, too. The cover
should be marked with the name of the contents, the
name of the consignor and consignee, and the gross
and net weight, though for obvious reasons, most con-
signees weigh all poultry received, unless it may be
from some well-known shipper in whom they have
learned from experience to place the utmost confidence.

T have said nothing about the manner of killing,
but suppose every poultryman knows that the only way
for the present-day markets is by sticking in the mouth.
Fowls must be well bled, as this improves the appear-
ance of the flesh. Crops must be completely empty
when the birds are killed. Nearly all markets require
birds to have heads and feet on, and to be undrawn.
Formerly, Boston required them drawn, but that
ordinance is no longer in force. During the capon
season, the weather is usually such that no ice is
required to keep in good condition, but if shipments
he made during warm weather, icing will be necessary.
Large, plump, well-fattened, neatly-dressed, attract-
ively-packed birds fill choicest market requirements,
and bring satisfactory prices.

CHAPTER VII

THE ART OF POULTRY FATTENING
BY H. E. MOSS, NEW YORK

HE commercial or utility side of the poultry
industry, while it has always been the moving
power thet drives the wheels of fancy, has now
reached a stage in this country that will mark

an epoch in its evolution. A new era has dawned.
New forces are at work and they are powerful and
capable of creating a revolution in methods. And this
force once applied cannot do otherwise than succeed.
This power is the great packing houses of the west: the
Swifts, Armours and others whose facilities for buying,
slaughtering and selling meat food products to the
world are of such magnitude and their system so perfect
that not a city, town or village in this, and but few in
foreign countries, in which their products are not sold
or their influence felt. To these great establishments
and not to the producers themselves are we indebted for
the new conditions.

More than seven years ago one of them stated to
the writer that nothing would please them more than
to be able to enter foreign markets, not with better, but
only as good poultry as those markets afforded. The
reason it could not be done was because the American
people have always set up as their standard of per-
fection a fat carcass, yellow and plump, without regard
to what that plumpness consisted of, the only
material known to them to produce it being corn, and
the result from feeding it being grease or fat deposited
in layers under the skin and a pound or more in
the abdominal cavity; the flesh being inferior, often
stringy and tough, and that poultry in this condition

ie POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

would be almost unsalable in European markets. The
American people with their reckless extravagance are
willing to pay high prices for such poultry because it 1s
the plumpest and best looking the markets afford, and
when the meat is separated from the grease in trussing
and cooking we are left but little edible portion, and
that not of the best quality, deluding ourselves with the
helief that we are eating a delicious morsel simply
because we paid a high price for it.

No such extravagance is tolerated in any other
country; poultry to many there is a luxury rarely
afforded. Under such conditions we can readily under-
stand why a fowl must be finished for market with the
largest possible percentage attainable of edible portion
as compared to bones and offal; furthermore, the texture
of the skin, shape, appearance and firmness of flesh to
the touch, and entire absence of layers of fat in the
dressed bird, and the white, juiev, finely flavored
qualities when cooked are the points of excellence. In
order to attain this a system of feeding for specific
results became necessary. Instead of turning the birds
loose to range at will and shoveling out corn to them,
they confine them, limiting the exercise to small coops,
and feed them on material that produces these results.
The method of feeding varies in manner and material
in different countries.

The most successful and profitable poultry finishing
locahty perhaps in the world is Le Mans in No>-
mandy. It is not uncommon for choice specimens to
sell for twenty and twenty-five franes (four to five
dollars) in the Paris markets and not over six pounds
in weight. Such prices, however, are not obtainable
outside of France, where their system of cooking and
serving is so different from ours, making it possible for
one fowl to serve three times as many persons as in any
other country.

~
or

THE ART OF POULTRY FATTENING

The next most profitable district is the counties
of Surrey, Sussex and Kent, England, where whole
families are engaged in it, as were their ancestors for
generations back. They know nothing else, they never
have done and their children never will do anything
else but fatten poultry for the London market. The
method employed is both trough feeding and the
cramming machine, some using one, some the other,
and many a combination of the two. The trough alone
is not so profitable but enables more fowls to be kept in
process. ‘Ten days of trough and ten machine feeding
is more profitable, but the best results are obtained by
machine feeding from start to finish, care being taken
to not overfeed during the first week, gradually getting
them up to full feed. These results are secured
through the ability of the bird to digest and assimilate
two or three times as much feed as it would consume
from a trough if left to its own inclination. The food
is made semi-liquid and no water or grit is given in
addition to it, but it must be ground to a meal and be
composed of just such material as will produce these
results without sickening or injuring the bird. By this
method they are able to add three or more pounds of
meat to a four-pound bird in twenty-one days at what
would be in this country a cost in feed of about eight
cents per bird for the twenty-one days, and in turn make
a profit not only on the weight gained but an increase
per pound for quality and finish; the perfectly finished
bird having what fat it carries deposited in globules
throughout the tissue, rendering it of that superior
quality demanded.

If these “‘fatters,” as they are called, are able to
buy the ten to twelve-weeks-old Irish birds sent over
for this purpose at seventy-five cents each, pay the
enormous prices they are compelled to for feed and sell
their products at a profit, what is to prevent Americans

TO POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

not only sending such birds to the English markets,
but from supplying their own with this most desirable
meat? Mr. Charles W. Armour, the head of the Armour
packing company, in an interview on this subject pub-
lished in the Kansas City Star of December 1, 1901,
stated that “the American people will pay more for
good food than any other people in the world.” This
is a significant statement from a man engaged in
supplying the world with meat food. All that the
American people need is a taste of this kind of poultry
and the demand will exceed the supply.

When this demand sets in there will be a wide
divergence in price between the thin and the finished
stock. The best will go higher, the poor lower. While
the thin chicken will always find a sale at some price
to the fatters, the greasy ones will go begging for
buyers.

Canada has for several years been developing
rapidly along this line. England naturally looks to her
colonies first for what she needs and they are prompt
to act on any suggestions from the mother country,
and foster such industries as are susceptible of develop-
ment on their soil. At Ottawa, Ont., Truro, N. 8.,
and Bondville, Que., the fattening of poultry for
the London market is carried on extensively under
government supervisidn, and they have standing orders
for greater quantities than they can possibly supply.

The climate of England is somewhat unsuited to
poultry culture, being exceedingly damp and _ wet.
Large poultry farms such as exist in this country are
unknown there. While I believe it possible for those
schooled in our methods of artificial incubation, brooding
and rearing to adapt these methods to English climate
and conditions, it remains to be done. There is no
limit to the quantity this country can produce. We can
supply every demand the foreign and home markets

THE ART OF POULTRY FATTENING vue

impose upon us. If we can produce a good article the
world wants it, but it will not do for us to try to force
them to accept our false standard of excellence as theirs,
at the same time knowing in our hearts that ours is not
the proper, but simply a convenient one. We supply
the world with the best beef; we finish our cattle up
to the highest degree of perfection, and the quality
governs the price. If we had refused to do so and tried
to sell Europe our grass-fed steers and insisted that
such were the best we could produce, they would have
none of it, and our home market would be our only
outlet.

The reader may form some idea as to the quality
and appearance of the best dressed poultry produced
in England by the following. At the Smithfield
(London) table poultry show held in December, 1901,
the first prize winners shown and weighed in couples
were:

Buff Orpington pullets, 21 pounds 4 ounces;
Dorking cockerels, 20 pounds 8 ounces; farmyard cock-
erels, 23 pounds 13 ounces; farmyard pullets, 17
pounds 10 ounces; Pekin ducks, 15 pounds 3 ounces;
turkey cocks, 59 pounds 3 ounces; turkey hens, 49
pounds 10 ounces.

There is nothing in the above that we cannot
duplicate and even excel in weight and quality. We
have only to adapt the necessary methods. The cram-
ming machine produces the maximum results, but
trough feeding will add from two and one-half to three
pounds of flesh to a four-pound bird in twenty-one days
by the use of proper feed, which of course is the
foundation. A live three-pound pullet as it comes from
the farm carries about six ounces of bone, twenty-one
ounces of offal, and after cooking about eighteen ounces
of edible meat. Here the percentage of waste to edible
portion is excessive. The bird is now in its best con-

73 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

dition to take on flesh, but the farmer, unmindful of
this opportunity to convert feed into meat, rushes her
off to market. The middleman steps in here and with
but few dollars invested in capital, no risks incident
to the production and maturing of the bird, takes
advantage of the situation and the grower’s indifference
or ignorance, and in three weeks makes more than
double the profit on a bird than the man did who
raised it. He skims the cream.

The following market quotations clipped from the
Kansas City Star for December 6, 1901, perhaps tell
the story more forcibly than we can; for after all the
hard cash is the best argument:

“Poultry—LExchange quotations, hens, alive 5 1-2c¢;
roosters, young, 20c; old, 15¢ each; springs, 6 1-2c

ducks, 6c; geese, 4c; turkeys, hens, 5¢ oe weighing
over 7 Me 6e; young gobblers, 5c; culls, 5c; pigeons,

50¢ dozen; squabs, per dozen, $1. 25 a is ; dressed
poultry, choice scalded stock in good condition brings
le above live poultry prices.”

From an adjoining column on the same page we
clip the following:

“Specially fattened chickens; a toothsome meat
particularly adapted to this season of the year. The
newest offerings in poultry to be found on the market
are especially fattened chickens which a local packing
house is offering its patrons. Besides being unusually
tender all the ane is as white as the breast. While
these chickens have been fattened primarily for the
English trade, their popularity is likely to become as
widespread at home as abroad. Like all choice morsels
they sell at high prices. A pound costs eighteen cents,
in the shops, and buyers are offered their preference
of either dry-picked or scalded stock.’

What reason or excuse can be advanced that will
justify the producer in selling his pullets (springs) at

THE ART OF POULTRY FATTENING 79

six and one-half cents, less express and commission
charges, when if properly finished they will fetch him
at least double per pound, Not theoretically or on
paper, but in fact as it exists to-day. He would never
dream of selling an unfattened steer or hog for slaughter
because the opportunity is his to convert grain into
meat at a profit. He takes advantage of this slower
and more expensive method but ignores the quicker and
more profitable one. His eyes are being opened, how-
ever, and the true situation is becoming apparent. The
revolution is at hand, and when the American people
undertake it aright they will show the foreigner a clean
pair of heels in this as we have in many other lines.
The business has already assumed large proportions in
the west. The Armours at Kansas City alone are
killing 10,000 fowls a day and they are but one among
those now engaged in it. They predict that in two
years they will be killing twenty times this number
daily. If the home markets will not consume them the
foreign will. There could not possibly be a greater
stimulant to the poultry industry than these big estab-
lishments have injected into it, and the time is close
at hand when eramming machines may be as common
as churns. We already make a better and cheaper
machine than the English. In the meantime let the
ery go forth: “Better poultry and more of it.”

The chief requirements for profitable and successful
fattening are simple and easily obtainable. First is
proper feed, of which ground oats is always the basis.
I know of no better mixture than 100 pounds ground
oats (with hulls sifted out), ten pounds corn meal, five
pounds clover meal, five pounds blood meal and one
pound salt. A suitable shed or building is required
that can be well ventilated and darkened, and if it can
be kept at a temperature of about sixty degrees, the
ereatest economy in feed and most rapid gain in flesh

80 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

will result. For best results, a cramming machine is
indispensable during the last ten days, as the birds
will not eat half as much as they are capable of
digesting and assimilating at this time. With the
machine we insist upon and control the question of
gain, instead of leaving it to their uncertain and well-
satisfied appetites.

The above formula is the best I know of for pro-
ducing the finest quality of meat and a white finish.
If a yellow finish is desired, the corn meal can be
increased and the ground oats decreased up to equal
parts, but the birds do not stand up nearly so well under
it. They also become irritable and indulge in feather
pulling and quarreling. When fed in troughs the above
materials, after having been thoroughly mixed dry, a
suitable quantity is stirred into sour skimmilk or
buttermilk, and made just stiff enough to not run.
For machine feeding it is mixed to the consistency of
eream. In the latter case the fowls need no water, as
there is sufficient liquid in the mixture, but in trough
feeding give them coarse sand for grit three times a
week and water to drink twice daily.

Neither water nor sweet. skiminilk will take the
place of sour milk or buttermilk in the feed. It would
eause bowel disorder unless an abundance of green food
were fed with the sweet milk, which would make it
safer, but this would be troublesome and unsatisfactory.
Water will not answer at all.

THE STOCK TO USE

The most desirable birds for fattening are Ply-
mouth Rocks, Wyandottes or Orpingtons. <A cross of
Light Brahma with Rocks or Wyandottes also makes a
very desirable bird and finishes very nicely, taking on
flesh rapidly and making a fine appearance on the
stalls. The common mixed stock as it comes from the

THE ART OF POULTRY FATTENING 81

farms does very well, especially when the American
breeds predominate. They should be cooped when
between three and four months old with the framework
nearly grown.

The cockerels should be taken before they crow.
It is a slow and uncertain task to undertake to fatten
matured males profitably, and with matured females
there will be some of them that will begin laying
instead of taking on flesh, especially if in good flesh
when put in. There is nothing difficult or uncertain
in the business. It is simply one of turning feed into
meat. It requires good judgment and a knowledge of
the requirements and habits of the bird or animal we
undertake to fatten, and a little experience teaches us
how to get the greatest gain in the shortest time. The
markets are ready for the product as soon as finished,
and prices are always such as justify the attempt to
produce meat of this quality.

ARTIFICIAL POULTRY FATTENING
By W. H. Allen, Jr., Massachusetts

The market requirements in regard to dressed
poultry are more exacting to-day than ever before.
This is not only true with poultry, but the same con-
ditions exist with cattle, sheep and hogs. A well-fleshed
product not only weighs more, but brings more per
pound, and in the case of poultry, the difference some-
times amounts to ten cents per pound. It is possible
in a lot of chickens to have some that are in very good
flesh, but how to have them all well fleshed and able
to command the top price, is something that has been
sought for a long time.

Increased Use of Machines—That fattening by
cramming fulfills this purpose must be readily acknowl-
edged by the large number of cramming machines in
use to-day. There is a party in Ohio who uses twelve

82 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

cramming machines, fattening some 20,000 fowls every
month. In this connection, I might state that pre-
viously this party ran thirty incubators, raising thou-
sands of chickens yearly, besides producing thousands
of dozens of eggs for the market yearly. But he has
found so much money in fattening by cramming that
he has given up raising poultry and eggs for the market,
and his thirty incubators are'idle and for sale. There
is a party also in Iowa using twenty-two cramming
machines—a party in Illinois who fattens on a very
large scale, fattening thousands yearly, a party who
supplies the White Star line with poultry fattened by
cramming, and they take all he can supply. The
Armour packing company of Davenport, Ia., has a
contract for 500,000 hand-cramimed poultry.

The greatest industry of Clarinda, Ia., is fattening
chickens for the London market. At the central station
here butter, eggs and poultry are received from a
radius of seventy-five miles and to the value of
$2,000,000 annually. This company is the oldest in
Jowa, and has other stations at Keokuk, Burlington and
elsewhere, handling between $5,000,000 and $6,000,000
worth of dairy and poultry products each year. The
feeding house at Clarinda accommodates about 7500
chickens which are fattened by cramming appliances.

Advantage of Special Methods—By this means the
weight of the chicken is increased from thirty-five to
fifty per cent. The flavor of the meat is much improved
and the selling value greatly advanced. The process of
fattening is not secret, as has been represented. The
Clarinda poultry company is anxious to teach the
farmers how to do it in order that they may improve
the value of their chickens hy proper food and eare.
They do the same thing with steers and hogs, and there
is no reason why they should not fatten their chickens.
The feeding machine will eventually be a common

THE ART OF POULTRY FATTENING 83

adjunct with poultry raisers, because the one who does
use it will produce so much better birds than the one
who doesn’t use it that the one who does not employ the
machine will see that to command the price for the
birds of the one who does use it, he must use it himself.
The reason for this is the almighty dollar; in other
words, “results.”

When chickens, especially cockerels, run at large,
while their appetites are good they lead too gay and
active a life to lay on much flesh. If they are cooped
up and fed from troughs they may eat a little, but they
are not active enough to create much of an appetite,
and as they have previously led an active life they are
not contented at being confined, consequently they eat
little comparatively. In other words, they have not
appetite enough to eat all the system can assimilate.
Now when the cramming machine is used it matters
not whether the bird has an appetite. That bird is fed
all it can possibly assimilate. The food should be so
prepared that the fowl can assimilate it with the least
possible exertion on the part of the digestive organs.
When this is done the bird has assimilated so much
more food than when fed otherwise that it is in much
more flesh and commands much better price. It leaves
a profit that well repays for the extra work of feeding
each bird by machine.

The birds will stand this high feeding for a certain
time, which is between two and four weeks, and take on
a surprising amount of flesh. But there comes a time,
if kept up, when the reaction seems to set in, and the
trick is to get those birds off to market before that time
or before the reaction has set in so far as to have done
any harm. This is generally known and understood
when ducks are fattened in large quantities. By a little
experience one can master the process and would not
then think of being without a cramming machine.

s+ POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

Cooping and Care—In fattening put each bird in
a stall by itself, as shown in Figure 9. Several can
be put together and good results obtained, but event-
ually one will learn that it is much more satisfactory
to have each bird in a stall by itself. Do not build the
coops stationary, but of a size easy to handle, for when
stationary it requires too much time to whitewash,
which should be done after each lot is taken out. The
best and cheapest coop is made of laths nailed on to
a frame, being four feet long, seventeen inches high,
eighteen inches wide. On the bottom nail two or three
laths, leaving a space of one inch between laths. This
will leave a space both back and front of bottom for
droppings to go through, and so keep the coop clean.
This space must be left both back and front of the
bottom, as a bird will turn around so long as it ean
get its head up. These coops can be set up from the
floor and the droppings scraped up from the floor. But
if space is to be economized, pieces a little longer than
the hight of the coop should be nailed on to the four
corners to serve as legs. Then a tray can be put under
each coop and coops put on top of each other three or
four high. The coop will keep clean, and by cleaning
the trays out every two or three days, the air in the
room will keep sweet. Gypsum or land plaster is a
good disinfectant, and it is well to sprinkle the bottom
of the trays with it after they have been cleaned out.
To whitewash make a trough a little larger than the
coop, put about ten inches of whitewash in it. Put
in coop, turn over, and the job is done.

How to Feed—Wheel the cramming machine up
to the coop in which are the birds to be fed. Take the
bird in the left hand, holding its feet and flight feathers
of the wings in the same hand, stretch out the neck
and push onto the feed tube of cramming machine,
being sure end of tube is in crop. ‘Keep the fingers of

SE NFARN

GROANS

9—INDIVIDUAL COOPS

ig.

F

86 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

the right hand on crop and press the treadle with the
foot. At first, feed the bird lightly. After a few days
the crop ean be filled full. See Figure 10, which shows
several cramming machines in a large plant. Several
types of cramming machines are shown in Figures 11,
12 and 13.

As to the feed, some use one thing, some another,
hut do not feed too much corn meal. Be sure to use
pulverized charcoal in the feed, about three pounds to
100 pounds of feed. It is a peculiar characteristic of
fowls that they can assimilate a large amount of fat,
and this point should not be overlooked when very best
results are desired. The food should be mixed to a
consistency of thick eream, and to be sure the food is
all right take note of the droppings. They should not
be watery, but of a consistency to hold together. If
the fowls have been fed right, it will be noted that they
gain most during the second week.

The main points in fattening by cramming are to
watch your birds and know the amount of food to give.
It is well to slightly ferment the food before feeding.
This may be done by mixing the- food up twelve to
twenty-four hours before feeding. If the weather is
cool the food should be put in a warm place.

Figuring the Profit—The difference between fat-
tening fowls by cooping and feeding by trough and
feeding hy cramming is the extra weight of flesh that
is put on. Aside from the fact that a good many birds
actually lose flesh when cooped and fed from troughs,
those that do well do not gain nearly so much as those
fed by machine. Now the cost of time of feeding in
trough is less than when the machine is used, but the
cost of time when fed by machine is not over three
and one-half cents per bird for three weeks. If the
hird fed by cramming machine weighs four pounds at
start of feeding, it should weigh six pounds after fat-

INVId SOUVT V NI

STMOZ PNINNVYI—OL “Sly
Ll = ae

83 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

tened. But after fattened it would sell for at least
four cents more per pound than before fattened. In
the first instance at twelve cents per pound, forty-eight
cents; in the second ninety-six cents; but cost of feed
for three weeks is twelve and one-half cents, cost of
time three and one-half cents, leaving a net profit of
thirty-two cents.

It is but the difference between actual cost and
selling price that must be considered in business, and
this is the real reason why the cramming machine is
of such benefit to poultrymen.

I started fattening by cramming, because I had
known from many years’ experience that much of my
market poultry was not in condition to command the
highest price. Furthermore, a market poultryman who
was in a position to know told me that if one could
fatten poultry successfully by cramming, there was more
money in that line than in any other, as there was
always a dearth of fancy poultry in the market. I
finally started to make a cramming machine, but had
no literature on the subject, nor anything to go by.
From. a coffee pot and a baking powder can, I rigged
up a reservoir and cylinder for holding feed. A spout
was soldered to the can and a stout wire with a cap
used for a plunger. This was connected to a foot lever
forcing out the feed.

I constructed a coop with the front and partitions
of wire, divided into seven stalls, and put in seven birds.
These were fed on one-third bran and two-thirds coarse
corn meal, but they did not gain in weight. The pump
broke many times, and it was changed this way and that
until finally perfected. It took longer to feed these
seven birds than it does now to feed 200.

Before the next lot of birds was put in, the coops
were changed somewhat, and the windows darkened.
I got the pump to working better, but had to stop and

Fig. 12—an ENGLISH FEEDING MACHINE

90 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

fill it for about every third bird. When I had finished
the lot, some were heavier than when originally put
in, and some were not. For the third lot, I bought
bolted corn meal where previously I had used common
coarse meal, and to the mixture of one-third bran and
two-thirds meal, I added a little charcoal. To my
surprise, the birds did much better than before. In
fact, they all gained, though some of them precious
little. Of the twenty-one birds, I lost seven. I was
so anxious to give them a square meal that I not only
filled the crop, but the windpipe also.

I made more coops and kept at it, for the market-
men gave me great encouragement in the way of prices
for fincas I Cink and Tr saw the good dollar ahead
if once I could cut out the loss. I kept losing birds,
but at length I awoke to the fact that I was feeding
each bird the same amount of food. So I changed
about, and gauged the amount of feed by feeling of
the crop. The percentage of loss decreased perceptibly,
and by constant patience and untiring energy I grad-
ually lessened that loss so that to-day it is about
nothing; in fact, with most lots, none at all, and in
cases where they do die it is a bird that was sickly at
time of cooping up. I now make better than $30 on
each 100 birds fattening three weeks. I have had lots
of birds gain three pounds or more, and the greater
number two pounds, the first two weeks. The birds
never look more healthy than when they are ready for
market. Their feathers are sleek, their combs red, their
eves bright, and they are well filled out. They gen-
erally bring six cents per pound more than other
chickens.

With regard to the coops, it took but one lot to
convince me that there should he a part of the bottom
left off at the back for the droppings to go through,
otherwise it made an unsightly mess. T have the coops

THE ART OF POULTRY FATTENING 91

so arranged that a great deal of time is saved in feeding.
I usually feed from 225 to 250 per hour, but I have on
occasion fed 330. ‘The coops are on legs with a tray

Tig. 13—cCANADIAN FEEDING MACHINE IN OPERATION

5

underneath to catch the droppings, and in that way I
put them three high and economize much floor space.
The front is so arranged that when the lath is pushed
up it stays there, and after I put the bird back, give
the lath a gentle tap and it drops in place.

CHAPTER VIII
LESSONS FROM FOREIGN EXPERTS
BY EDWARD R. BROWN

HERE are approved methods for fattening, viz.:
(1) from the trough, (2) by hand, (3) by
funnel, and (4) by machine. The first system
has already been referred to, and is chiefly
employed for the production of half-fattened specimens,
which may either be kept in the ordinary pens or in a
house and run, which can be moved on fresh ground
as often as is necessary. It is fitted with troughs at
either side. One of these appliances, six feet long by
three feet wide, is large enough for a dozen birds, and
is a suitable form for ordinary farmers. In Belgium
the famous Coucou de Malines are fattened entirely
from troughs, they are kept in closely covered sheds
during the entire process.

Hand Feeding—Some of the finest fowls which are
produced both in England and France are crammed
by hand; but the process is slow, so that it is only
suitable where labor is abundant and cheap. In a large
establishment it would be impossible to get through the
work if hand cramming were depended upon. The
food is mixed to a thick paste, and formed into pellets
or boluses about three-fourths inch long and one-half
inch thick. There are two ways in which feeding takes
place. In one a number of pellets are prepared, the
operator takes hold of the bird’s head, gripping it
between his body and left arm, opens the mouth with
the thumb of his left hand, dips the pellet into whey
or milk, inserts it in the mouth and presses it down
the throat with his finger, and then carries the food

LESSONS FROM FOREIGN EXPERTS 95

into the crop by running his thumb and finger down
the outside of the gullet. The second plan varies
somewhat. The operator sits upon a stool, with a lot
of paste and a bowl of milk or whey before him. The
bird is placed upon his knees, its legs held firmly by
them, the left hand holding the wings, and he places
a small quantity of food, after dipping it in the milk,
into its mouth, allowing it to swallow in the usual
manner, there being no actual cramming. Both of
these methods are very simple. In some instances a
combination of these two methods is adopted. The
birds are kept in cages, to which are fitted troughs.

at \

FRc ee TH NV y"

Fig. 14—FUNNEL FOR CRAMMING

After each meal the attendant goes round, feels the
crop of each fowl, and crams a few of the pellets when
it is thought necessary to do so.

Cramming by funnel is largely carried on in south-
ern Normandy. In this case the food is made into hquid
form about the consistency of cream. A specially made
funnel, the nozzle of which is carefully turned to
prevent injury to the bird’s throat, is inserted into the

94 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

gullet until the orifice enters the crop, which can he
felt by the finger, and the food is spooned therein until
the crop is full, when the funnel is withdrawn. In
operation the process requires a much shorter time than
it takes to deseribe, but care must be taken, or there is
danger of choking the fowl. These funnels, Figure 14,
can be purchased at a reasonable price, and splendid
quality of flesh is produced in this manner.

Cramming by machines is found to be most
expeditious, and the first cost is speedily saved in the
labor bill. An expert operator can feed as many as
250 birds an hour, so that the duration of the insertion
is very short. Many have the idea that this system is
a cruel one, but it is not. A careless or inexpert
operator can hurt the subject, but it does not pay him
to do so, as any injury to the throat or mouth would
cause inflammation to set in and the bird would die.
The tube which is passed down the throat is of india
rubber, flexible, and as the cartilaginous rings of the
neck are flexible, it enters quite easily. The way in
which the fowls anticipate the feeding time, after the
first two or three days, shows how they regard the
operation. The machine largely used, shown in Figure
12, has a horizontal cylinder, and is operated by a
foot lever. A is the reservoir for the food; B, the
pump cylinder; #, the piston rod; G, the spring foot
pedal and piston back again; A’, nozzle and food tube;
AM, stop for regulating quantity of food; O, lever and
treadle. For use in these machines the food is made
semi-liquid, about the consistency of very thick cream,
which is placed in the reservoir. The operator moistens
the tube with milk to make it pass easily, takes the
tube in his right hand, the bird’s head in the left, the
bird itself being held firmly under the left arm. Then
with the assistance of the finger and thumb of the right
hand he opens the bird’s mouth, and shps the fore-

LESSONS FROM FOREIGN EXPERTS 95

finger into it to hold down the tongue, quickly inserts
the end of the tube, and, holding the neck perfettly
straight at its full length, pushes it down four or five
criches. according to the size of the bird. At this
moment the ial of the right foot, which up to this
time has been resting on the treadle, is depressed and
forces the contents of the cylinder into the crop until
it is sufficiently charged. When the crop is full enough,
the tube is withdrawn, care being taken to relieve the
pressure on the treadle for a second or two before taking

M as , \
fais

Aa HT
i My Js"

Fig. ZNING AND KILLING SHEDS
the tube out, otherwise a small quantity of the food
will continue to flow after the tube is removed. The
quantity; of the food can be regulated to a nicety, and
the great thing is to cease pressure the moment
sufficient has been placed in the crop.

The most important point in connection with
fattening poultry is to give the food regularly, and if
there is any remaining in the crop from the previous
meal not to give any at all. Several of the French
cramming machines are for hquid food, and attached
to them is a piece of india rubber tubing, fitted with
a spring tap or nozzle, so that the birds can be fed

96 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

in pens without taking them out, the liquid flowing
when the spring is released. In this case the nozzle
only is placed in the mouth, not pressed down the
throat. The head must be held well up and the neck
stretched to allow of easy swallowing.

French Methods—Without exception, the food in
France is always prepared from finely ground meal,
hard corn never being employed. Buckwheat meal,
maize meal and barley meal are used. With one or
other of these is used skimmilk, but in several districts
of France the whey of curdled milk is preferred, and in
the La Bresse country the latter is thought to give better
perfection in fattening and improve the quality of the
flesh, Some of the fatteners are content to mix hot
water with the meal, but all acknowledge that milk or
whey is better. In some cases, boiled potatoes are
mixed with the food. In some parts of France, fat is
mixed with the food. It is customary when the older
birds are to be fattened to divide them in accordance ~
with their sex and kind. See Figure 15 for illustration
of fattening and killing sheds.

Linglish Chicken Fattening—In England a number
of people make a business of fattening chicks for the
market. These chicks are bought of farmers when
weighing three to four pounds and then prepared for
market. Professor Robertson, commissioner of agricul-
ture for Canada, thus describes a visit to a chicken
fattener in Sussex, England: We began life as a farm
laborer and is now doing a prosperous business. I
would not like to say how much the fattening business
brought him in, but I should not be surprised to learn
that his annual net income was about $5000.

He has on an average 4800 chicks fattening at his
place. In approaching the house I went down a lane,
lined on both sides with coops in which there were
chicks. Other coops were placed about the place. The

4

LESSONS FROM FOREIGN EXPERTS 97

special buildings required for this purpose are very
cheap affairs and not at all large. Two-thirds of the
fattening is done in the open air. He rears only a small
portion of the chicks which he fattens, and has a man
who goes. around on certain routes every two weeks,
collecting chicks from farmers, who raise them to about
three and one-half pounds live weight.

The coops in which the chicks are put for fattening
are about six and one-half feet long, sixteen inches wide
and sixteen inches high inside. Each coop is divided
into three compartments and in each one of these are put

in ‘|

Xt

Fig. 16—rnGLIsSH FATTENING PEN

five chicks. The coops are made of sticks or rods with
a sliding door in front of each compartment. (See
Figures 16 and 17.)

The chicks are fed about three weeks, but some-
times longer or less, according to their condition when
received, and the activity or dullness of the market.
They are fed on oats ground very fine, the hrtlls being
pulverized until they are almost like dust. This is
mixed with skimmilk, either sweet or sour, but prefer-
ably sour, to a consistency of thin porridge, so that
it will drop but not run off the end of the spoon. It

9S POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

is usually fed raw in a V-shaped wooden trough placed
in front of each coop. The chicks are fed a small
amount of this three times a day at first. They are
kept hungry for the first week and after this are fed
twice a day as much as they will eat. During the last
ten days a small quantity of tallow is added to the
mixture. This is melted and mixed with a small
portion of meal, when it will mix readily with the bulk
of the feed. A pound of tallow to seventy chicks is
given at the beginning of the ten days’ feeding and
gradually increased to one pound to fifty chicks.

Summary of English Mcthods—The following
rules have been drafted by one of the most successful
south-country fatters:

In fattening fowls, the actual amount of fool
supplied goes only a little way in the production of
flesh as compared with the conditions under which the
birds are kept.

There is a difference in the readiness in which
fowls fatten, even of the same variety. Large framed
birds, well grown, produce the finest specimens.

Where first quality birds are to be turned out,
those selected should be placed in a large outside run,
and for the first three or four weeks fed on no more than
one meal a day. They are then removed to the pens,
and the food gradually increased in quantity until they
have as much as they can eat, when they are finally
finished off by cramming, as already described, this
last stage occupying three weeks. The object of the
treatment is to gradually build up the flesh upon the
frame. It is not suitable for young chickens, which are
fed right off, and is not usual for ordinary fowls.

When cramming commences, each bird should be
placed in a separate pen, or two to six together in
larger compartments, if of the same age and sex, in a
quiet, sweet, and if possible, rather dark room or shed,

LESSONS FROM FOREIGN EXPERTS 99

and for the first few days be fed from a trough, finish-
ing off by the crammer.

Before a bird is crammed, the crop should be felt,
and if there remains any food in it from the previous
meal, no food is given until the next time of feeding.
Observations should be made as to the quantity assim-
ilated, so as to give a fowl each time as near as possible
just about as much as it can digest. Should a bird
show any sign of sickness, it should be placed in an
open run for twenty-four hours without food. To aid
digestion, grit may be given in a dish before each pen,
and boiled nettles mixed with the food two or three

ey |

Ti aia &
Fig. 17—ErNGLISH FATTENING SHED

times a weck as an aid in keeping the blood cool.
Young chickens may be fed three times a day, but for
older birds twice a day is much to be preferred.

It is customary in England to give a small quan-
tity of fat during the latter stages of the process, and
this is found to give a softness to the flesh which is very
desirable, but the amount should not be large, or the

100 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

grossly fattened specimens which are so objectionable
will be produced. None whatever is mixed with the food
whilst the fowls are being fed from the troughs, but
when put onto the erammer, a quarter of an ounce
should be allowed for each bird per day, or a table-
spoonful for four fowls, gradually increasing it to
double that quantity. Fat may be bought in barrels
for this purpose ready for use, but in most of the
larger towns butchers’ scraps can be purchased at a
cheap rate, and should be clarified and stored ready for
use when required. It must, of course, be melted and
thoroughly mixed with the meal and milk. It is some-
times found, especially during hot weather, necessary
to keep the blood cool. A little flowers of sulphur is
useful to this end, but some of the fatters boil nettles,
and, after chopping, mix in the same manner.

Fowls should be fed twice each day, and at regular
times. The exact hours will vary in accordance with
the season of the year. In summer six o’clock in the
morning and six o’clock in the evening will be the most
suitable, but in winter eight in the morning and four in
the afternoon will be better. In this case the evening
meal should be fuller than the morning.

Routine of a@ German Plant—Twenty-four hours
after the chicks are hatched they are moved into cages.
The cages are simple, having straight lattice fronts,
which vary in space between bars according to the age
of the birds. Sliding doors facilitate cleaning, and the
cages vary in size, for as twenty birds are kept together
they need more space as they grow. Out of these cages
they never go. Before them is a constant supply of
food, made of maize meal and buckwheat meal mixed
with milk, for several cows are kept on the farm. A
little phosphate of lime is given for bone and feather
formation. Each room is warmed, and yet there is a
constant supply of fresh air, but it must pass around

LESSONS FROM FOREIGN EXPERTS 101

the stove ere entering so that the birds are kept in an
even temperature. Treated in such a way, many
chickens are ready for killing at six weeks old, while
all meet their fate ere they attain two months. At
this latter age many weigh three pounds each, and the
prices per pound vary from twenty-two to thirty cents,
according to the season. They are killed on the spot
and dispatched in various ways. The German parcels
post being cheap tends to develop business. In summer
ice is used for packing. In 1890 9000 chicks were
reared in this manner, in addition to 1000 sold alive
at two to three days old. Several hundred fat fowls
of four or five months were sold, but these were reared
outside and fattened in cages, on the French plan,
accommodations being provided for 300 birds in
another building.

Below the pens, which are made in sets of six, is
a long board similar to that employed in canary cages,
kept covered with earth, and the droppings fall upon
this tray through the bars at the back of the floor, the
latter being solid only half way in. The cages are
simple in construction, having a sliding bar in front,
and stand upon short legs. The food trough runs the
whole length of each set of six. The cages are six feet
long, one foot six inches deep and one foot nine inches
high, divided into six compartments. The tray is
three inches deep and slides easily in and out, the legs
being carried six inches below the pen proper.

Foods Used—In Belgium finely ground buckwheat
is universally used, and this gives very good results.
In France buckwheat meal and fine barley meal are
used very largely, both of which are very good, but by
reason of the greater amount of lime in oats they
certainly are the best.

With meal should be mixed sour skimmilk, butter-
milk or whey free from curds. In Sussex, England,

Ate POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

the whey alone is adopted, and one of the largest fatters
sometimes pays $100 a week for milk during the busy
season. Whole milk would not only be more expensive,
but the butter fat in it is not necessary, and other fat
can be substituted at a much cheaper rate. Surprise
is often expressed that sour rather than sweet milk
should be used. In practice it is found that the former
gives better results, the acid generated by the turning
of either milk, buttermilk or whey causing more rapid
action than would be the case if it were sweet. Not
only is the milk itself soured, but when mixed with
meal, as is usually done immediately after feeding is
over, it is allowed to stand for several hours, until a
slight fermentation has taken place. The advantage
of being able to use what is often waste products is
very great, and on dairy farms the skimmilk and
buttermilk can be thus made of great service.

CHAPTER IX
AMERICAN FATTENING METHODS

HE big Kansas City and Chicago packing houses

are going into the chicken fattening business in

a wholesale manner. One of them proposes to

start branch feeding establishments to collect and

fatten chickens for the main concern. Lean chickens,
it is claimed, can be made to gain two pounds each in
two weeks at a cost of two cents per pound, while the
specially fattened bird will sell for three and four cents
more per pound than the unfattened one. The fat-
tened flesh is softer, richer and also lighter in color.
At present only a part of the 10,000 fowls killed
daily are specially fattened, but cage accommodations
are furnished for about that number. Long rows of
continuous coops are piled one on top of the other in
a huge room. The chickens are kept in a dark room.
Just before feeding time huge shutters which obscure
the light are opened. These shutters are high on the
sides of the building. The chickens, with the light
turned on them, become active. Three times a day the
chickens are fed and are permitted to eat for a half
hour only. Jong troughs run the entire length of each
row of coops. The spaces between the laths are just
large enough to permit the chicken to thrust his head
out of them into the trough. Six chickens are confined
in each coop and there is an opening for each chicken.
Tt has been discovered that a chicken will eat twice
as much if fed regularly three times a day as if per-
mitted to feed all day long. Just as soon as the half
hour’s stuffing is concluded the room is once more
darkened and the troughs taken down. The chickens,
thoroughly satisfied, become almost dormant. For

dud POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

fifteen minutes before feeding ‘they keep up a contin-
uous crowing. Two minutes after the feeding not a
sound can be heard in the chicken department.

The food comprises a variety of grains ground very
fine, cooked and fed moist. These stall-fed fowls are
becoming very popular at high prices wherever offered.
Experiments are being made with the machine poultry
feeders as used in Europe, and an American type of
the machine has been invented. But at present nearly
all the fowls are pen fattened. The plan may easily be
followed by small producers, the essentials being quiet
and darkness except at feeding time, and plenty of soft
food in variety, with regular feeding.

Progress in Canada—At the new chicken fattening
stations in Canada the methods practiced are those by
which the best grade of poultry is prepared for the

=e S— — b=

ee SSS PS —
SS =

—S

Se

Fig. 18—rnaAME OF CANADIAN FATTENING CRATE

English market, the object being to fit Canadian
poultry to bring the highest prices when exported, but
the prodnet is in demand in its home market also, at
advanced prices. The chickens are bought from farmers
at the weight of three to three and one-half pounds live
weight, choosing the breeds likely to fatten well, and
with white or hight yellow legs, paying for these thirty-
five to sixty cents per pair.

AMERICAN PATPENING MEPHODS 105

The chickens are put in small open lattice coops
and fed on ground grain, chiefly oats mixed with
skimmilk. During the last part of the process they
receive an allowance of tallow. Four to twelve chickens
are kept in each coop. The grain is ground fine and
mixed with skimmilk, sweet or sour, sour being
preferred. The mixture resembles cream or thin por-
ridge. At first, food is given three times a day for the
first ten days, then twice a day. At the end of the
second ten days the cramming machine is used. Tallow

CANADIAN FATTENING CRATE

fed during the fast ten days is melted, thickened with
meal and then mixed with the porridge. It is the rule
not to feed at all until the crop is empty from the last
meal. The cost of food in some recent experiments
was 6.43 cents per pound of live weight gained.

For twenty-four hours before killing, the birds are
not fed. They are bled through the mouth, plucked,
but not drawn. <A ring of feathers about two .inches
long is left at the head of each bird. They are shaped
on a shaping board, cooled, wrapped in a piece of clean

106 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

brown paper, leaving the neck and head projecting at
one end and the legs at the other. Shipping cases for
twelve fowls are 33x19x6 1-2 inches. The financial
side of one experiment foots up as follows: Cost of
chickens, fifty-four cents; food, thirty-three cents; ship-
ping cases, three cents; freight, commission, ete., eigh-
teen cents; total cost, $1.08 ver pair. They sold for
$1.76 per pair.

a eo
Fig. 20—cRATES OF CHICKENS FATTENING UNDER THE
5
TREES AT BONDVILLE, QUE.

The result of the second year’s work was con-
sidered on the whole much better than the result of
the first at every station. The knowledge and ability
can be acquired only by experience. In a locality where
a station was opened, the first year the farmers had not
the right sort of chickens to fatten well. Breeds of
chickens like Leghorns and Minoreas do not fatten
profitably. The fattening of them is like trying to
fatten Jersey steers as against Shorthorn bullocks.
The Plymouth Rocks and Wyandottes give far better
results in fattening than the smaller breeds. At

AMERICAN FATTENING METHODS 107

Whitby, Ont., in 1900, were fattened 134 chickens,
which cost 55.8 cents per pair. The feed was valued
at $1.20 per 100 pounds for ground oats and fifteen
cents per 100 pounds for skimmilk. At these rates the
feed cost 22.2 cents a pair; the cost of shipping cases
2.2 cents a pair, ocean freight and cartage 7.8 cents a
pair, selling commission six cents a pair, express charges
in Canada from the shipping point to the seaboard

Fig. 21—FATTENING CRATES AGAINST A TIGHT FENCE
WITH ROUGH BOARD SHELTER

3.6 cents a pair. The whole cost was 97.6 cents a pair,
and these were sold in Manchester for $1.28, leaving
thirty cents a pair for the labor and profit.

The fattening coops are made of frame and slats
in a simple manner as shown by the illustrations, Fig-
ures 18, 19, 20 and 21. A coop for twelve birds is six
feet long, fifteen inches square and nineteen inches
high. These are kept on stands as illustrated, being
placed in sheds or outdoors in a sheltered place. The

108 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

chickens are fed twice a day, the food being placed in
the trough in front, and the droppings fall througir
the slats to the ground. Some chickens were fattened
on the ground, but those in coops did better. It was
found that nothing could take the place of skimmilk,
which was used thick and sour about twice as much by
weight as of grain. The manure was of some value,
and the feathers, averaging four ounces per bird,
brought seven cents per pound.

The following is the Canadian fattening expe-
rience boiled down in a practical way: The most
profitable period for fattening is four weeks. Don’t
overfeed the first week. Remove food left over. After
first week give them all they will eat. Feed twice a
day. Grain should be ground very fine. Skimmilk
makes flesh and whitens it. Use a little salt, and
supply water and grit. Feed tallow the last ten days,
mixed hot with ground grain, beginning with one pound
tallow to seventy or 100 fowls and increasing to one
pound for fifty to seventy. Will lice with sulphur
rubbed under wings and tail. The feeding machine
will increase the gain the last ten days, but should not
be used longer. Stuff only when the crop is empty.

The following in tabular form shows the results
in 1900 from some of the best Canadian stations :—

Gain IN WeiciT. Cost oF FRED.
No. Per Lb
STATION. Avitage ee
30 days eoei8 Total each Total ae
Lbs. Lbs. $ Cts. Cts.
Whitby, Ont 263 2. 13.55 5.1
a 61 2.44 3.27 5.3
Bondville, 14214 2.85 7.96 5.6
Truro, N. : 78 2.6 3.38 4.3
Alberton, P. E. I....... 126 31444 2.5 16.12 5.1
BORIS) sseccctinnnsinisee 30D 85834 2.35 44,28 5.27

Feeding Fowls in Yards—The results of several
comprehensive trials by the Maine experiment station
prove conclusively that confinement in small coops as

AMERICAN FATTENING METHODS 109

practiced abroad is not necessary for the best or cheap-
est gains. Prof. G. M. Gowell has made six group
trials of close confinement as against partial liberty in
fattening chickens. Different foods were also tried,
but in each case they consisted of a mixture of ground
grain and by-products wet up with either water or
skimmilk. The trials comprised the use of thirty-five
separate coops and six houses. In these lots there were
fed 3821 chickens of different ages in periods of
twenty-one, twenty-eight and thirty-five days each.
The occupants of the coops were weighed weekly to
note the gain. In eleven of the coops, containing four
birds each, gains were greater than in the houses and
yards containing from twenty to sixty-eight birds with
which they were matched. In the twenty-four other
coops the gains were less than in the houses and yards
with which they were similarly matched. In five of the
six trials gains were greater in the houses and yards
where birds had partial liberty. :

The results show that close cooping is not necessary
in order to secure the greatest gains in chicken fatten-
ing and-that the chickens make greater gains when
given a little liberty than when kept in close confine-
ment. Not only did they make greater gain in weight
but less food was required to make a pound of gain.
The labor involved in caring for birds in small numbers
in coops is much greater than in caring for an equal
number in houses and yards. Jn all the trials the
greatest gain was made in a feeding period of thirty-
five days. Forty chicks confined in the coops gained
an average of two and one-quarter pounds each, while
twenty chicks of like age and condition fed in a house
and yard gained two and one-half pounds each. The
trials also show that the greatest and most economical
gains are made with young fowls. In two trials birds
which were ninety-five days old at the beginning of the

110 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

feeding period, which continued for twenty-eight days,
gained twice as much as birds in other trials which
were 160 days old at the beginning of the test, which
in this case lasted but twenty-one days.

The main requirements for economical gain seem
to be the partial confinement of voung fowls and feeding
them twice daily on a suitable mixture of ground feed.

Home Method—I have fattened for market this
season over 100 cockerels and have settled on this method
as best. They are confined two weeks in a coop or pen,
given plenty of room and air, but where drafts cannot
strike them. Low roosts are provided, a dust bath,
though I have never seen them use it, and boxes of grit
and oyster shells. - I make low benches of overturned
soap boxes, on which I place their pans of food and
milk, that they may not readily be soiled or spilled.—
[Clarissa Potter, Maine.

To Fatten Poultry Quickly—The following direc-
tions are sold by a concern which advertises them as a
method to fatten poultry, especially turkeys, in “four
or five days,” Boiled rice is the standard remedy for
bowel troubles of turkeys, but as a regular fattening
ration would prove expensive compared with corn.
Sometimes slightly damaged rice, rice powder, sago or
tapioca can be bought cheap. “Set rice over the fire
with skimmed milk, only as much as will serve once.
Let it boil until the rice is quite swelled out; you may
add a teaspoonful or two of sugar, but it will do well
without. Feed them three times a day in common
pans; give them only as much as will quite fill them,
at once.” The addition of sugar, molasses, tallow, ete.,
to the soft feed hastens fattening, but does not
ordinarily pay unless these materials can be bought for
about the price per pound of grain. Milk is of great
value fed with soft feed, and is worth more fed to
fattening fowls than to pigs or calves.

CHAPTER X
AT KILLING TIME

OO many fowls are still dispatched by cutting off
the head; a method tolerably good for home use,
but with disadvantages when applied to market
poultry. A fowl killed this way weighs less, loses

in appearance and dry picks a great deal harder than
when killed in expert manner. A bird killed in a
bungling or second rate style is evidence of the beginner
or amateur, and fowls so treated are quite likely to be
poorly fattened and carelessly dressed and packed.
In poultry marketing, as elsewhere, the money is made
by those who learn the best methods from start to
finish.

Yet it should be noted that in some localities and
in certain markets, particularly those of small towns,
the best classes of poultry are sent to market beheaded
and scalded or otherwise mishandled from an expert
point of view. It may not be wise for the beginner to
go contrary to the best practice of his market in such
details. A careful examination of the best carcasses
of the various classes of poultry will show what the best
trade expects. Judgment must be used. The grower
who is building up a choice private trade may safely
introduce changes which are improvements, but which
would require some courage and push to work success-
fully for shipment to a large town. In some places
there is considerable “missionary” work to be done, but
the best methods will no doubt prevail everywhere as
they become more discriminating. At present the
market sections which are most careful and notional
about poultry are also those where the best prices may
be obtained.

AULTOOd DNISSANGA NI Sati INAUGAIG TAI—ZE ‘ALT
Hog 07 Suruurdag parg ayy Suruunyy yup any duryey

AT KILLING TIME 113

In preparing poultry for market the following is
the usual expert method employed: The fowl to be
killed is held, with the back up, far enough under the
left arm so that the neck is stretched when the arm is
extended. ‘The head being grasped in the hand, with
the forefinger holding the mouth open on the under
side, the knife, preferably one with a sharp narrow
blade, is thrust into the mouth as far as possible, as
shown in the first of the series of six illustrations pre-
pared for this chapter by T. H. Taylor, Jr., former
instructor at Rhode Island ‘poultry school. A quick,
strong cut is made up through the roof of the mouth,
causing the fowl to bleed frecly. The large wing and
tail feathers are the first ones pulled and while the
fowl is bleeding, the picker holding the bird by the
wings close to the body with the head toward him, as
shown in Figure 22. By this time free bleeding will
have stopped. Still holding the fowl in the left hand,
it is struck once or possibly twice on the head with a
club to stun it and prevent fluttering in a great
measure.

The picker now sits beside an open box, the top of
which comes on a level with his knees. The fowl’s
head is thrust into an old boot leg tacked on the side
of the box and is held there by the picker’s knees;
the wings being held between his knees. The legs are
held in the left hand while he picks with his right:
the breast feathers first, then the back and legs, finish-
ing with the small wing feathers, with the exception of
the first joint, which is left unpicked. While picking
the fowl is always held stretched out and the feathers
pulled toward the head. As they are pulled thev are
thrown into the box. The feathers being removed, the
picker uses his knife to pull the pinfeathers, the thumb
of his right hand and the blade acting as tweezers, as
shown in Figure 23.

SSVOUVD GILL YNIMOId—-eg ‘Slyf
SloypvaT ayy Suarypsrayg SuLLey Vayu [mo poystulg 9uL

AT KILLING TIME 115

The finished fowl is shown at the left in Figure
23, the wings being folded back to give a sym-
metrical appearance. The fowl is then thrown into
clean cold water to cool. After remaining about an
hour in the water, it is taken out and allowed to drain,
and is then ready to pack for shipment. The above
method applies to ducks, geese and turkeys, except that
with ducks and geese the pinfeathers are usually
“shaved.” Although called shaving it is more truly
cutting, a sharp vegetable knife being used with a
quick drawing motion to cut them off.

Turkeys are generally hung up by the feet, then
stuck and the wing and tail feathers pulled, and, after
being hit on the head, taken down, and the same
methods employed as with fowls.

A prominent western poultryman describes a
shghtly different method: “In killing, hang the
chicken by the legs by a slipnoose at a hight convenient
for the picker, say four and one-half feet. Clasp wings
between fingers of left hand, also raise head and hold
between thumb and third finger of same hand, holding
the beak open. Hold knife in right hand.

“The stroke of the knife, if properly made, enters
the brain and also cuts large arteries. The fowl bleeds
freely, closes its eyes and seems paralyzed. Picking
should begin at once before the muscles jerk and stiffen.
Begin with the breast, carefully if tender, to avoid
tearing. Next the tail and along the back of the neck.
Then the wing butts, neck and fluff. Finally clean off
the remaining feathers and hand the bird to the pin-
featherers, who are usually women. By practice a fowl
may be picked in less than two minutes. It is impor-
tant to draw most of the feathers right after sticking
in order to pluck fast and without tearing. If the
skin is badly torn it should be sewed after pin-
feathering.

116 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

“Fowls to be scalded are stuck more deeply and
the blade twisted a little during the stroke, causing
them to bleed fast and die quickly. When dead hold
in nearly boiling water one minute, but keeping out the
legs and head. All but the large feathers can be rubbed
off in‘a moment, using care not to needlessly rub away
the skin.”

The place to cut is indicated in Figure 24, also the
approved style of killing knife, although a pocket knife

Fig. 24—KNIFE AND WHERE TO CUT

of small to medium size will answer. The cut is of course
made inside the mouth. On opening the bill the artery
to be cut may be seen beneath the place marked a.
Make a clean cut with the point of the blade so as to
cut artery under point marked b. Figure 25 shows the
operation, also a guide for the knife, which is a con-
venience where large numbers are killed. The bird
here is suspended by the legs, so that the head just
enters the guide. The body is first slipped into a sack
made from old grain bags, to prevent flapping and
bruising. For grown fowls, the bag should be about
twenty inches long, ten inches wide at the larger or

AT KILLING TIME 117

top opening, gradually getting narrower until it is only
five inches wide at the bottom opening. The fowl is
placed in the bag head foremost. Owing to the shape
of the bag, the fowl slips down to that part of the bag
that fits it after the style of a legging. The head of
the fowl comes through the small opening at the bottom
of the bag.

Fig. 25—KILLING BAG AND KNIFE GUIDE

Killing Ducks—On one of the largest Long Island
duck farms the ducks killed are arranged as follows:
Two posts are planted in the ground about ten feet
apart. The posts are either mortised or a notch sawed
in them near the top, five feet from the ground. A rail
is then spiked in these notches, and strings fastened
to the rail with loops to hold the feet of the ducks. As
many pegs are driven in the ground underneath the

118 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

rail to correspond with the number of strings. To
these are fastened a short picee of wire, the top of
which is bent in the shape of a hook, which is fastened
into the duck’s nose. This prevents the duck from
swinging its head around and soiling its feathers with
blood. In dressing, the breast feathers are removed
as soon as possible. The feathers on the head, a few
on the neck, the flights in the wings, and the tail
feathers are left on. Duck feathers bring about forty
cents per pound, which about pays for the picking.

Foreign Methods—In France there is a plan of
sticking followed, which offers advantages to the inex-
perienced. A special knife is employed. It is fitted
with a long, narrow blade, sharpened on both sides.
The bird is taken, its legs tied together, and laid upon
its back; the mouth is then opened with the operator’s
left hand, and the point of the blade inserted into the
slit which will be found in the fowl’s mouth. One firm,
sharp cut is made right along the skull from back to
front, piercing the brain most effectually. To do this
properly the knife must be forced right through to the
back of the skull, and the brain cut along its entire
length. The bird should be hung for a few minutes
to allow the blood to drain away, when plucking can
take place. If the operation is properly performed
death is very speedy, and there is only momentary pain.
Care must be taken to cut the brain as described or the
bird’s death will be a slow one.

Wringing the Nech—Fowls intended for export
from Canadian ports to England are killed by wringing
the neck. Much of the blood flows into the parts
around the head, from which it is drawn away by a
small eut. The bird should be held firmly by the legs
in the left hand, the head in the right between two of
the fingers back of the skull, the back of the bird
upward. The legs are then pressed against the left

AT KILLING TIME 19

hip, the head laid against the right thigh near the knee.
Next the fowl should be rapidly and firmly extended
or drawn, and at the same time the head is suddenly
bent backward, by which means the neck is dislocated
* just below the junction with the head, and death
immediately ensues, as all the large vessels are torn
across.

If fowls are to be killed by
the beheading process, a mechan-
ical guide, as shown in Figure
26, helps in keeping the bird in

——— Ss position and in guiding the blow.
Fig. 26—BEHEADING The spikes are far enough apart

BLOCK to slip the head in between. One

person can easily hold legs and

chop head off, which is much easier than striking hit
or miss.

CHAPTER XI
PREPARING FOR MARKET

FTER raising the poultry we do not take pains

enough in preparing it for market. This

chapter will be devoted to an account of the

standard methods in vogue for poultry intended
for the large market cities.

The birds should not be fed for at least twelve
hours before killing. Turkeys should be picked while
warm; for best markets never seald, as it injures the
sale. Pick carefully and do not bruise or tear the skin.
After picking, remove the head, strip the blood from
the neck and take off a portion of the neck bone. Just
before packing draw the skin over the bone, tie and
trim neatly.

Poultry should be entirely cold before it is packed,
as it is almost sure to spoil if any animal heat remains.
Even if it should not injure, its ill appearance would
probably secure the condemnation of the health inspee-
tor. Turkeys should be laid straight and packed in
boxes hned with clean paper. Straw should never be
used, as it creases the bodies, and the chaff gives an
untidy appearance. Nor should turkeys be wrapped in
paper. They shonld be packed as closely as possible,
backs upward, legs straight, so that there can be no
possibility of splitting. When packed in barrels they
are cramped and do not present so good an appearance
when taken out. The best boxes are of good quality,
clean and made to hold 100 to 200 pounds. Larger
boxes are inconvenient to handle and more lable to
injury.

Mark the boxes plainly. The shipper should
always be strictly honest and mark the quality, gross

PREPARING FOR MARKET 121

weight and tare exactly. Any attempt at deception will
be discovered by the buyer, the commission house will
have to make good all loss, and the shipper’s mark will
be subsequently avoided as unreliable. The address of
the consignees should be plainly marked and the initials
or shipping mark of the consignor. Full advices and
invoices are usually sent by mail at once after the
goods are shipped.

The bench shown, Figure 27, is convenient when
picking and dressing fowls. It is made from a com-
mon, plain table. One pair of legs are shortened to
give a moderate slope, side guards are added to hold

Fig. 27—TABLE FOR DRESSING FOWLS

the feathers, which are caught in the basket. A hole
is made for the neck of the fowl to drip through into
the dish below.

For most markets, the intestines or crop should
not be “drawn.” For scalding poultry, the water
should be as near boiling point as possible, without
actually boiling. The bird being held by the head and
legs, should be immersed and lifted up and down in
the water three times; this makes picking easy. When
the head is immersed it turns the color of the comb
and gives the eves a shrunken appearance, which often
leads buyers to think the fowl has been sick. The
feathers should then be at once removed, pinfeathers
and all, very cleanly and without breaking the skin.

IR2 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

It should next be “plumped” by being dipped about
ten seconds in water nearly or quite boiling hot, and
then at once into cold water fifteen to twenty minutes.
Great care should be taken to avoid bruising or cutting
the bones or flesh. It should be entirely cold and dry
before packing, but not frozen. This is a matter of
importance, for if packed with the animal heat in it,
it will be sure to spoil. After scalding ducks and geese,
wrap them in a cloth for about two minutes, when the
down will roll off with the feathers. Guard against
overscalding, as this will cause the skin to loosen and
rub off. Underscalding is also undesirable, as the fowls
are liable to become slippery during shipment.

Western Methods of Dressing—lWKill by bleeding
in the mouth or opening the veins in the neck; hang
by the feet until properly bled; head and feet should
be left on, and the intestines and crop should not be
drawn. For scalding poultry, the water should be as
near the boiling point as possible without actually
boiling; pick the legs dry before scalding; hold by the
head and legs and immerse and lift up and down three
times; if the head is immersed it turns the color of the
comb and gives the eyes a shrunken appearance, which
leads buyers to think the fowl has been sick. The
feathers and pinfeathers should be removed imme-
diately, very cleanly, and without breaking the skin;
then “plump” by dipping ten seconds in water nearly
or quite boiling hot, and then immediately into cold
water; hang in a cool place until the animal heat is
entirely out; it should be entirely cold, but not frozen,
before being packed.

Dry-picked chickens and turkeys sell best, and we
advise this way of dressing, as they sell better to
shippers; scalded chickens and turkeys generally are
sold to the local trade. To dry-pick turkeys and
chickens properly, the work should be done while the

PREPARING FOR MARKET 123

bird is bleeding; do not wait and let the bodies get
cold; dry-picking is more easily done while the bodies
are warm. Be careful and do not break and tear
the skin.

Pack in boxes or barrels; boxes holding 100 to 200
pounds are preferable, and pack snugly; straighten out
the body and legs so that they will not arrive very
much bent and twisted out of shape; fill the package
as full as possible, to prevent shuffling about on the way.
An ideal package of dressed poultry is shown in Figure

ee .-- 0

Fig. 28—DRESSED POULTRY PACKED IN THE BEST STYLE
28. Mark kind and weight and shipping directions
neatly and plainly on the cover. Barrels answer better
for chickens and ducks than for turkeys or geese. When
convenient, avoid putting more than one kind of fowls
in a package. Endeavor to market all old and heavy
cocks before January 1, as after the holidays the demand
is for small, round, fat hen turkeys only, old toms being
sold at a discount to canners.

For geese and ducks, the water for scalding should
be the same temperature as for other kinds of poultry,
but it requires more time for it to penetrate and loosen

124 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

the feathers. It is a good plan after scalding to wrap
them in a blanket, providing they are not left long
enough to partially cook the flesh. Another method,
and no doubt the best for loosening feathers, is to
steam them, and, whenever proper facilities are at hand,
we advise this process. It is poor policy to undertake
to save the feathers dry by picking them alive just
before the killing, as it causes the skin to become very
much inflamed and greatly injures the sale.

Do not pick the feathers off the head, and it is well
to leave them on the neck close to the head for a space
of two or three inches. The feet should not be skinned,
nor the bodies singed for the purpose of removing any
down or hair, as the heat from the flame will cause
them to look oily and bad. The process of plumping
and cooling is the same as with turkeys and chickens.
There is no kind of poultry harder to sell at satisfactory
prices than poor, slovenly dressed geese and ducks, and
those who send in such must not be disappointed at low
prices. No poultry of any kind sent to the Chicago
market should be drawn.

Boston Produce Exchange Instructions—In fatten-
ing for the markets, remember that you will not only
get pay for every pound your poultry gains, but by
improving the quality you gain from one-fourth to
one-half in price on the whole. This improved quality
is more likely to be gained by feeding corn than other-
wise. Give them all they will eat, and your poultry
will be more yellow and better than that fattened on
any other grain.

Keep stock from food for twenty-four hours before
killing; because food in the crop injures the appearance,
is Hable to sour, and consumers object to paying for this
worse-than-useless weight. All poultry, but more espe-
cially turkeys, should be killed by bleeding from the
neck, and picked immediately, while the body is warm.

PREPARING FOR MARKET 125

No strangled, scalded, or wet-picked poultry will sell
for more than half price. Always strip the blood out
of the neck as soon as the head is taken off. The skin
should then be peeled back a little and the neck bone
removed in the usual way. Just before packing, draw
the skin over the end of the bone remaining, and tic
and trim neatly. The wing and tail feathers must be
pulled out clean, and the intestines drawn through as
small an incision as possible.

Be sure that poultry retains none of the animal heat
when it is packed. It should be cold, but not frozen.
Sort very carefully and have “No. 1” stock of uniform
quality. Each quality should be in a separate box,
containing not more than 200 pounds, as greater bulk
is more inconvenient to handle and more liable to get
damaged. Never wrap poultry in paper or pack in
straw. line the boxes with clean paper, pack closely,
back upward and legs out straight. Before the cover
is nailed down, see that there is no possibility of the
contents shifting about. In shipping, mark kind and
gross weight on the cover. The name or shipping mark
of the shipper should appear thereon, as well as the
address of the firm to which the package is sent. An
invoice and full advices mailed as soon as the shipment
is made will often save time and annoyance to both
shipper and dealer.

A Chicago Dealer’s Directions—In the first place,
poultry should be well fed and well watered, and then
kept from eighteen to twenty-four hours without food
before killing. Stock dresses out brighter when well
watered and adds to the appearance. Full crops injure
the appearance and are liable to sour, and when this
does occur correspondingly lower prices must be
accepted than obtainable for choice stock. Never kill
poultry by wringing the neck. To dress chickens, kiil
by bleeding in the mouth or opening the veins of the

126 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

neck; hang by the feet until properly bled. Leave
head and feet on and do not remove intestines nor crop.
Scalded chickens sell best to home trade, and dry-picked
best to shippers, so that either manner of dressing will
do if properly executed. For scalding chickens the
water should be as near the boiling point as possible
without boiling; pick the legs dry before scalding ; hold
by the head and legs and immerse and lift up and down
three times; if the head is immersed it turns the color
of the comb and gives the eyes a shrunken appearance,
which leads buyers to think the fowl has been sick; the
feathers and pinfeathers should then be removed imme-
diately very cleanly, and without breaking the skin;
then “plump” by dipping ten seconds in water nearly
or quite boiling hot, and then immediately into cold
water; hang in a cool place until the animal heat is
entirely out of the body. To dry pick chickens prop-
erly, the work should be done while the chickens are
bleeding; do not wait and let the bodies get cold. Dry
picking is much more easily done while the bodies are
warm. Be careful and do not break and tear the skin.

Packing and Shipping—Before packing and ship-
ping, poultry should be thoroughly dry and cold, but
not frozen; the animal heat should be entirely out of
the body; pack in boxes or barrels; boxes holding 100
to 200 pounds are preferable, and pack snugly;
straighten out the body and legs, so that they will not
arrive very much bent and twisted out of shape; fill
the packages as full as possible to prevent moving about
on the way; barrels answer better for chickens and ducks
than for turkeys or geese; when convenient, avoid
putting more than one kind in a package, mark kind
and weight of each description on the package and mark
shipping directions plainly on the cover.

Icing Poultry for Shipment—On this subject a
Chicago commission dealer writes: “There is but one

PREPARING FOR MARKET 127

absolutely successful way to ship iced poultry, and that
is in crushed ice. It should be shipped in barrels that
are strong, with holes in the bottom. First place a
layer of excelsior on the bottom of the barrel, then a
layer of crushed ice. Lay the fowls neatly together
and then cover them with another layer of crushed ice.
Keep this up until the barrel is filled. When the top
is reached, cover the last layer of fowls with an inch and
a half of ice. The finer it is crushed the better. Place
over this some excelsior, and over the top burlap. Poul-
try shipped in this way will never bruise, and arrives in
the market in excellent condition. In several instances _
I have instructed my shippers to do this and once sent
a grate bar to a heavy shipper and instructed him to
pound his ice through this bar, so as to crush it. Ice
crushed as is done for barrooms is the kind to use in
shipping dressed poultry. The crushed ice seems to
form a crust in each layer and keeps the poultry as sweet
and nice as when first killed. All who follow these
directions will have no trouble with iced poultry.”

Shrinkage—The feathers weigh three to four
ounces. If the fowls are drawn and cleaned as for a
choice trade, the feathers, blood, intestines, etc.,
removed will weigh seven to twelve ounces according
to method of preparation and size of fowl. In small
broilers the shrinkage may be as little as one-fourth
pound.

Shipping Alive—Among those who have only
small lots of poultry to ship or who have had little
practice in killing and dressing for market, the practice
is increasing of shipping alive. Some commission men
make a specialty of handling live poultry. Instructions
and advice should be written for in advance. Live
fowls .are usually in demand in summer and during
certain Jewish holidays. Great numbers of broilers
are shipped alive in spring and summer. All live fowls

128 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

are shipped by express, usually in “slatted coops with
covered bottom. A reasonable amount of space should
he allowed in the crate. Overcrowded fowls suffer and
shrink in weight.

Coops for live shipments should be forty-eight
inches long, thirty inches wide, twelve inches high for
chickens and ducks, and fifteen inches high for turkeys
and geese. Use lumber as follows: Use two by two for
corner posts or one by two will answer. If you cannot
get them, get one by four and rip them in two. Cut six
pieces thirty inches long, and nine pieces twelve or
fifteen inches long, for each coop; nail the short pieces
one at each end; one in the center of the long ones (use

Fig. 29—FrowL DRESSED FOR FAMILY TRADE

tenpenny wrought nails). Make three of these frames,
one for each end and the center. For the bottom use
one-half-inch boards or lath, make the bottom tight
(use sixpenny nails) ; use one-half by two-inch strips of
lath for sides, ends and top; put them one and one-half
inches apart; the width of lath is about right. Leave
two laths loose on top in center, or make a door of them
to open, in order to put poultry in and take it out;
now nail a lath around the coops, each end and the
center (outside the three frames made first). This will
keep the lath from coming off and make the coops
stronger. For broilers the coops can he made ten inches

PREPARING FOR MARKET 129

high and twenty-four inches wide. This will make a
good, strong, light coop.

Family Poultry—For choice private trade, prepare
in an especially attractive manner, as in the illustra-
tion, Figure 29, in convenient shape for boiling or
roasting. Pick the birds carefully, wipe off any dis-
coloration with a moist cloth, singe carefully and
remove any remaining pinfeathers, and the bird is
ready for cooking. Customers appreciate getting poul-
try in just this shape. The feet can be left on, but

Fig. 30—cANADIAN SHIPPING BOX

when customers have confidence in the one furnishing
them poultry, this is not necessary.

In exporting chickens for England, according to
the advice of A. S. Baker, an English expert, select those
weighing from five and one-half to six pounds each.
They should have the head left on, a fringe of feathers
left around the head, and the tail and wing feathers
should be left on. They should be picked dry, never
drawn, and starved for twenty-four hours before killing.
They should be packed in boxes holding one dozen

130 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

chickens, with a partition in the center, six fowls on a
side, packed heads and tails. The Dorking is the
standard fowl of England. Canadian chickens weighing
five and one-half to six pounds each bring eighty cents
apiece, while those from the United States, which are
much smaller and not specially fattened, bring but
fifty-two to fifty-four cents. (See Figure 30.)

Killing and Dressing Squabs—The squabs should
be killed before they get so large that they leave the
nests. The standard size is eight pounds to the dozen.
With properly kept birds this weight is usually attained
in four weeks with straight Homers, and five weeks
with Dragoons, says William E. Rice in Farmers’ Bul-
letin No. 177 of the United States department of
agriculture. The squabs should be caught in the
morning before the feeding and watering is done. This
assures empty crops. Judgment must be used in select-
ing the squabs, or some which are too light may be
taken, causing a cut in the price. As caught, the
squabs should be placed in pigeon hampers and taken
to the killing room, which in cool weather should be
heated to be made comfortable for the picker. Place
the hampers within easy reach of the chair in which the
picker is to sit, and have a basin of water close by.
Directly in front of the picker, suspend in a horizontal
position a ring of wood or iron, about a foot in diameter,
and hang from the ring four cords eight inches long,
terminating in slipnooses.

Icilling the Squabs—Catch a squab from the ham-
per, and suspend it by passing one of the nooses around
the legs, tail and wings, letting about two inches of the
ends of the wings project beyond the noose, and tighten
it well. Insert the killing knife (sold for such pur-
poses) well into the back of the mouth and draw it
forward, cutting clear into the brain. Hang a weighted
wire in the bill and let the bird bleed. The wire is six

PREPARING FOR MARKET 13

inches long, hooked and pointed at the upper end, an
weighted at the lower end with a piece of lead the size
of a hulled walnut. Four birds are killed in turn, and
picking begins on No. 1 as soon as dead. Novices may
kill and pick but one at a time until some speed is
gained, but an expert picker will kill four and “rough
pick” them all before they get too cold.

Dressing the Squabs—Allow the birds to remain
suspended, but release the wings, grasping them both
in the left hand back of the bird. Moisten the thumb
and fingers of the right hand in the pan of water, and
begin picking the neck, leaving about three-quarters of
an inch next the head unpicked. Still hold the wings
in the left hand until the entire front of the bird, legs
included, is picked. Then, bringing the wings in front
of the bird, hold in the left hand as before, and remove
the balance of feathers from the body. Now, with
wings still in left hand, pluck quills from both wings
at once, and also the larger feathers, and nee finish
each wing separately. This completes the “rough
picking,” after which they must be pinfeathered, in
which operation a small knife is helpful. An expert
picker, when he has finished the third bird, kills three
more so that they may be bleeding while he is at work
with the fourth. As soon as finished each squab is
dropped into a tub of cold water to drive out the animal
heat and make the birds more firm and plump. An
expert picker can kill and “rough pick” twenty squabs
an hour or completely dress twelve to fifteen in the
same time.

It pays well to use care in picking not to tear the
skin or leave any feathers on the birds. Well-fattene]
birds are seldom torn by the expert picker. The
weighted wire is of advantage in slightly stretching the
skin and making it less Hable to tear. When all the’
squabs are dressed, the feet and mouths must be thor-

138 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

oughly washed of all filth and blood; they should be
placed again for a few minutes in clean cold water, and
then hung on a drying rack for five minutes to drain.

Marketing—Ilf the squabs are sold to a local dealer,
they may be taken from the rack at once, placed in a
suitable basket, and delivered immediately. If they
are to be expressed to a distant market, packing in ice
is necessary, and a box or barrel must be used. Place
a layer of cracked ice at the bottom, alternate with
layers of birds and ice, and finish with a generous top-
ping of ice. Only in quite cold weather is it safe to
onut ice. Place a sccure covering on the package and
mark full directions to whom shipped, as well as your
own address, and the number of birds.

Squabs for AMarket—If squabs are killed before
they can fly the flesh is white, but after that it darkens,
reducing the value from one to two dollars per dozen.
Those raising them for market should keep the old ones
well supplied with food so that the young may become
plump and fat. DP. Hf. Jacobs advises: Always dry
pick them, and remove all of the down. Leave on the
heads, and leave the entrails in. Have them thoroughly
cooled before packing, then ship by express. The rules
for picking and shipping squabs apply to broilers.
Leave all the feathers on the neck and the large ones
on the wings and tail. Slips are dressed the same way.
They are readily selected from capons by the growth
of their combs and swelling of the spurs. These
usually sell for several cents per pound less than the

eEnynons.

CHAPTER XII

MARKETING TURKEYS AND WATERFOWL

those who can raise and put them on the market

at that season. They must be fat, well matured

and of good size to bring top prices, which means
early hatching in spring and good attention in rearing.
Turkeys are birds of a roving disposition and will not
bear confinement well. They should be fed at least
once, and; better, twice a day all through the summer
and fall. The night feed may be old corn and the
morning ration a mash composed of equal parts corn
meal, ground oats and wheat middlings, mixed up with
skimmilk. Farmers do not generally appreciate the
value of milk for fattening poultry. For two weeks
before killing time the turkeys can he confined if neces-
sary, in a yard or pen, and fed all they will eat of the
above feeds, but it will not do to shut them up longer
than this, or they will lose instead of gain in flesh.

Put them in a shed not too light, but with an open
front to admit air. Provide broad, low perches, ample
feed troughs and dishes for water and milk. Corn meal,
bran, cooked potatoes, oats and buckwheat are good
fatteners: also a little cheap tallow or suet in the soft
food. They cannot digest their food properly without
plenty of gravel or grit. Feed only what food they will

eat up clean. Before killing for market keep feed away
from them for twenty-four to thirty-six hours, so that
the crop and intestines will be well emptied. Hang ~
up by the legs and kill by bleeding through the mouth.
Plunge the knife through the roof of the mouth into
the brain, when the bird will at once relay and not
flutter. Have a barrel near by and strip off the feathers

6 ete turkeys bring good money to

Lot POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

at once. By being fairly quick one can pick a turkey
clean before it has stopped bleeding and the feathers
have had a chance to set. The tail and large wing
feathers of the first joint are often left on, but if not
they should be pulled carefully, one at a time, after
the rest have been picked. Where the turkey is wanted
for the family it may be sealded before picking, but for
the market should be picked dry. Let hang to cool
thoroughly before packing.

A Chicago commission dealer, who handles large
quantities of poultry, advises the same methods as given
on Page 125 for preparing chickens, but always dry pick
turkeys. Dressed turkeys, when dry picked, always sell
best and command better prices than scalded lots, as
the appearance is brighter and more attractive.
Endeavor to market all old and heavy gobblers before
January 1, as after the holidays the demand is for small
fat hen turkeys only, old tems being sold at a discount
to canners.

A turkey producer and shipper of long experience,
J. M. Cooper of Schenectady county, N. Y., thus
suminarizes the approved methods of finishing and
preparing for market: “A good appearance with the
turkey is essential for top prices. After the year’s care
of raising and feeding, do not allow from one-half to
several cents per pound to be rubbed off because of
hasty, careless or improper dressing or packing. This
feature should receive as much attention as do the young
poults in early spring. A well-picked, clean, untorn
oe delivered in sound and attractive condition, will
sell for much more than one bruised, torn and poorly
cleaned. This finishing work takes but little time or
money, yet it pays handsomely. T feed sealded corn
meal twice a day and whole corn at night for three
weeks before killing. T have never shipped turkeys to
market, as there is a good demand for them in the city

MARKETING TURKEYS AND WATERFOWL 135

near by. In dressing, I always scald; it is less work and
they sell better in our markets. When turkeys are
shipped to market, dry picking is best.

“Tf turkeys are mature enough to kill by Thanks-
giving, I kill half of the flock two days before the
holiday and save the rest until Christmas. If they did
not begin to lay early, they will not be mature enough
to fatten and dress well by that time; we are then
obliged to wait until Christmas and New Year’s. Smail
lots of medium turkeys will sell readily here at any
time late in the fall, but large ones are not wanted
except at holidays. Turkeys dressed in the very best
shape to suit the market to which they are taken will
sell for one-fourth more per pound than just as good
ones carelessly dressed. Late, thin turkeys with pin-
feathers and broken skin are a nuisance in a market
and a loss to raiser, dealer and consumer. After I take
prime dressed turkeys to a market I find it easy to sell
there afterward at a little above market price. Most
people are too careless to learn to dress turkeys nicely,
or fail to see the importance of it.

“T confine them at least twelve hours without food
before killing. A strong person should hold them by
the wings near the body, another person cut the arteries
on each side of the neck close to the head, with a knife.
Hold the bird as long as it struggles; if not held they
will bruise themselves. I kill two turkeys for every
picker before I scald, and dress those before I kill anv
more. A turkey should be dressed in fifteen minutes.
I have a six or eight-pail boiler on the stove, with four
pails of boiling water and a barrel full of cold water
ready, put nearly one pail of cold water into the four
pails of boiling water on the stove, have a moderate
fire; the one pail of cold water will reduce the four
pails down to scalding heat, which is hot enough. Take
the turkey by the legs, push it entirely under the hot

156 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

water with stub of an old broom, raise gently wp and
down to work the water under the feathers, and count
ten. Then take it completely out of water to air it,
count ten again, then plunge in water again and work
up and down a little, at the same time counting thirty,
then take out and plunge immediately into the barrel
of cold water, and it is ready to pick.

“Pickers throw old bags or pieces of carpet on
their laps or hang the turkeys up to pick. I am very
eareful not to allow them to be dragged around over
anything, or else the skin will he broken and make dark
spots when cold. If the large feathers on the tips of
wings and tail stick, dip those parts in hot water again.
If the bird are not sealded enough, count slower when
dipping; if scalded too much, count faster. If they are
not dipped in cold water immediately after being
scalded, the heat in the feathers will cook the fat and
tender parts so much that they will certainly be torn in
picking. Even when dipped in cold water care must
be taken, as the damage does not show much until they
are cold. Dipping in cold water shrinks the skin so
that they look plump and pick better. Scalding partly
cooks the skin and gives them a rich golden color,
while a dry-picked turkey skin is blue and wrinkled.

“When picked, open a small hole to take out the
vent and intestines. Loosen the fat inside about the
yent and roll it out so as to fill the hole nicely. Leave
the crop in, as it is empty. Lay on a table or board
on their backs, close together, so as to keep the wings
close to the body, with head hanging down, and continue
the killing. JT take them to market one day before the
holiday, cut the heads off and make the load up so as
to show off to the best advantage, and sell to the fancy
trade myself. If they are prime and fancy, T ean set
my own price and get it. My young turkeys bring
from $2.50 to $3 cach, two-year-old gobblers from $5

MARKETING TURKEYS AND WATERFOWL 137

to $6. I would take my turkeys fifty miles to a large
city and market them myself rather than to ship to
commission merchants. From what I have scen in our
markets, shipped poultry brings low prices in competi-
tion with choice dressed native stock. Wealthy people
do not Jike shipped poultry and are willing to pay
fancy prices.” The illustration, Figure 31, a box of
American poultry, shows how to box and ship turkeys.

20 No. 1 250
Turks, 40 Choice 125
210 Chicks. 20
105
ADDRESS OF COMMISSION ADDRESS OF COMMISSION
MERCHANT. MERCHANT.

Boxes

Fig. 31—TURKEYS PACKED AND MARKED

The movement and range of prices in former
vears are shown in the following table, compiled by the
New York Produce Review, covering the receipts in
packages for Thanksgiving week with quotations for
best grade western turkeys; also the closing prices on
the Wednesday preceding the national holiday in, the
years named.

138 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

TURKEYS THANKSGIVING WEEK AT NEW YORK

¢ —Prices— —
Reecipte. Thankeciving Closed
packages werk Wednesday

c

1903

11@12%
9 @10
10 @ll
10 @11%

. 29,68)
» 29,141

12 @13
114%@12
8 @9g
3 @10
3 @l4
14. @15
15 @16
12 @13
31,554 10 @il

English Methods—The methods of English turkey
fatteners, as described by E. R. Brown, include several
good suggestions: About five weeks before killing, the
turkeys are put up to fatten in a dry, comfortable shed,
which must be large enough for the number of birds
accommodated. Then the northern and eastern sides
of this shed should he well closed in, but the southern
and western sides may be wire netted, thus affording
the inmates plenty of fresh air. Broad perches are
provided, and must not be more than three feet above
the ground. Food and water are placed in troughs
conveniently situated, and away from the perches.

When shut up to fatten the turkeys are given all
the food they will eat. The morning feed consists of
barley meal and wheat meal. Some farmers who are
very particular and have good customers mix the meals
with milk, and give milk to drink instead of water, an
inexpensive addition if skimmilk is used, and one which
considerably improves the flesh. Although not much
used, there can be no doubt that the addition of a little
pure fat to the soft food is highly beneficial, softening
the flesh. Cooked potatoes can also be added to soft
food with advantage, and this applies to all fowls put

MARKETING TURKEYS AND WATERFOWL 139

up for fattening. The afternoon feed consists of
whole barley, oats and a little maize, which are more
easily digested if steamed in hot water. When fully
satisfied all food should be removed, the troughs
emptied and washed after the morning meal of soft food.

In every case there must be a plentiful supply of
coarse grit and sand available to the fowls, and a little
slacked lime or old mortar will be an improvement.
Without grit the turkeys cannot possibly digest their
food properly, and without effective digestion flesh
production will never be complete. Should any of the
turkeys fight the culprit must be removed. Turkeys
can be crammed by machines as are fowls.

Feeding Ducks for Markct—The description is by
a prominent duck raising expert, G. H. Pollard of
Bristol county, Mass.: “At twenty-four or thirty-six
hours old we take the ducklings out of the machines
and put them into the pipe brooder that we have. A
small brooder is perhaps just as desirable and as cheap,
if you have not many birds. Then we start them on
bran and meal, two-thirds bran and one-third meal,
and if we have a supply of whole or skimmed milk we
mix the mash with milk. We do not cook it at all.
Sometimes we have taken two-thirds bran and one-third
meal and scalded it and after it was cold we would
mix in a few eggs, but not enough to make it sticky.
Sometimes we have fed them as much as twenty per
cent beef scrap. Drinking water should be kept by
them always and particularly when they are feeding, as
they cannot swallow the food without it, and it chokes
them. If they do not have water by them all the time,
when if is supplied they get into it and the ducklings
tread upon and kill one another. At five or six days
old we drop the milk and begin to add the heef scrap,
about two per cent to begin with, and just a dash of
salt. Then we begin to decrease the bran and add the

140 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATIENING

meal until we get even parts of bran and meal. At
two weeks of age they will be getting half and half
of bran and meal and five per cent of beef scrap.

“We often feed young ducks five weeks old as high
as twenty-five per cent of beef scrap. I do not know
that I would advise that always, but one must be
guided by the condition of the market. One objection
to feeding so much beef scrap is that it tends to make
many pinfeathers. You can take a young duck at ten
weeks old that has had no animal food and he will
not show pinfeathers at all, while the same bird having
had animal food would show a great many pinfeathers
at ten weeks and at eleven weeks he would be too pin-
feathery to dress. Ten weeks is the usual age at which
they are dressed, but it depends largely upon what you
feed them whether they are fit to be dressed at that age
or not. The cost of caring for them and the cost of
grains and meat foods decide the question whether it
is best to dress them early or market them at a later
date. I think that generally the quicker you can get
rid of them the better it is.

“We kill at ten weeks. The common way of fat-
tening would be to cut off the bran at eight weeks. We
do not change the food from the time we begin to give
them equal parts of bran and meal right up to the
killing time, and so do not have the bother of getting
the separate foods mixed. Green food we do not give
at all to the young ducks, unless we intend them for
breeders, and then we give them a moderate amount
of green food. You can get quicker growth with becf
serap than to add green food. We usually kill at ten
weeks, because at that time they pick better. Beef’
scraps start the pinfeathers; the bird that has had very
little beef scraps will pick at twelve or thirteen weeks
very nicely, ne at ee or eleven weeks the pinfeathers
start quite frecly if the ducks have been fed with beef

MARKETING TURKEYS AND WATERFOWL 141

scraps. The Pekin duck should be dry-picked. In the
west and in New York state they are scalded quite
extensively, but in the east they are dry-picked. In
the south they pay only three cents apiece for picking,
while we pay six to eight cents. The lowest prices in
the duck market are from the first of July to the first
of September, and from September to November the
price always goes up from two to five cents a pound.”

Killing and Dressing Duchs (Howard)—There are
two methods of dressing ducks for market, by dry

2
vo

©o

—DUCK PiIcKkING (Howard)

picking and scalding. Both of these methods are good
and are being employed successfully by the largest
raisers. Some have a preference for dry picking and
others for scalding, and it is only a matter of taste
which method is used. When birds are dressed by
scalding they should be dipped several times, or until
the feathers come out easily. The back should be
dipped in the water first. After scalding, wipe them
as dry as possible with a sponge and pick the breast
feathers first. A bird when dressed for market has left

142 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

on it the feathers on the wings, tail, head and neck.
The legs are left on and the birds are not drawn.

The process of dry picking is considered the
simpler of the two methods, and one who is accustomed
to the work can dress three dozen birds in a day. The
picker’s outfit congists of a chair, a box for the feathers
and a couple of knives, one knife being dull, the other
sharp-pointed and double-edged, for bleeding. The
bird is taken between the knees, the bill held open with
the left hand, and a cut made across the roof of the
mouth just below the eyes. The bird is then stunned
by striking its head against a post or some hard sub-
stance. The picker seats himself in the chair with
the bird in his lap (see Figure 32), its head held
firmly between one knee and the box. The feathers
are carefully sorted while picking; the pins are thrown
away and the body feathers with the down are thrown
into the box. Care should be taken about this, as the
feathers from each bird will weigh about two ounces,
and will quite pay for the picking.

The dull knife and the thumb are used to remove
the long pinfeathers, and this should be done without
tearing the skin. The down can usually be rubbed off
by slightly moistening the hand and holding the skin
tight. Often some of the pins cannot be taken out
without tearing and disfiguring the skin; when such is
the case they should be shaved off. Seven or eight
nunutes is all the time necessary to dress a bird. After
the birds are picked they should be carefully washed;
and plumped by placing in a tank or barrel of ice
water. They are hardened in this ice water and given
a rounded and full appearance. They are then packed
in barrels or boxes and shipped to market. The first
or bottom laver is packed with backs down; a layer of
ice is then placed over them, and all other layers are
packed with the breasts down, a layer of ice being

MARKETING TURKEYS AND WATERFOWL 143

between each layer of ducks. The top of the box or
barrel is then rounded off with ice and covered with
burlaps. A flour barrel will hold about three dozen
birds. Some raisers use boxes for shipping and have
the empties returned free. Figure 33 shows a pair of

ly
(

Fig. 33—Ppair DRESSED DUCKS TEN WEEKS OLD (Howard)

young ducks dressed for market, while the frontispiece

shows a large eastern Massachusetts duck farm.
Dressing Ducks and Geese—A western dealer says

ducks and geese should be scalded in the same tempera-

144 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

ture of water as for other kinds of poultry, but it
requires more time for the water to penetrate and loosen
the feathers. Some parties advise, after scalding, to
wrap them in a blanket for the purpose of steaming,
but they must not be left in this condition long enough
to cook the flesh. Do not undertake to dry-pick geese
and ducks just before killing for the purpose of saving
the feathers, as it causes the skin to become very much
inflamed, and is a great injury to the sale. Do not
pick the feathers off the head; leave the feathers on
for two or three inches on the neck. Do not singe the
bodies for the purpose of removing any down or hair,
as the heat from the flame will give them an oily and
unsightly appearance. After they are picked clean
they should be held in scalding water about ten seconds
for the purpose of plumping, and should then be rinsed
off in clean cold water. Fat heavy stock is always
preferred.
Wholesale Goose Fattening—At Adamsville, R. I,

there is a large goose-fattening establishment. The
proprietors pick up the geese in carts when about half
grown, that is, about the age that the quills begin to
start; many farmers prefer to dispose of the geese in
this way rather than have the trouble of fattening them
themselves. The professional fatteners finish off the
geese in four to six weeks. There is nothing secret
about the method of fattening. They are given mostly
corn meal, bran and meat, and fed all they will eat.
At killing time, five or six pickers are employed, and
these become very expert, dressing off from twenty to
twenty-five a day. The product is shipped to New
York and Boston; sometimes the demand is better in
one city, and sometimes in the other. The poultry are
dry-picked and feathers sold, being kept until. winter
and shipped all together. Goose Paha are usually
worth about thirty-five cents per pound, duck feathers

MARKETING TURKEYS AND WATERFOWL 145

from twenty-eight to thirty cents. Common hen
feathers sell at four to five-cents per pound.

Said Mr. Cornell, owner of this establishment:
“This year I have fattened about 10,000 geese and about
4000 ducks, not as many as usual, as it has been a poor
season. I feed them on corn meal and beef scraps,
fattening them during September, October and Novem-
ber. I feed 100 bushels meal per day, and two tons of
scraps per week. We do not coop them up in houses
to fatten them; they are out in yards about thirty to
forty feet square. I employ about eight pickers and
three or four men to take care of the geese. Most of
my poultry goes to New York market. We stick them
in the roof of the mouth to bleed them, and hit them on
the head with a small stick. Do not pick the neck or
wings, only the body. I Dey ten cents for ae
geese and six cents for ducks.”

According to another specialist, geese may be
finished for market by feeding liberally about four
weeks in coops. An old shed is a good enough fattening
place. Good foods are corn meal and shorts, boiled
oats, brewers’ grain and some fresh green stuff or
boiled potatoes. Gravel or grit is positively needed,
also plenty of water.

Special Fattening of Geese—The most extreme
method of artificial fattening is employed with geese
whose livers are to be used for the delicacy known as
“foie gras” (fat liver). In Farmers’ Bulletin No. 152
of the United States department of agriculture, Helen
W. Atwater says this art of fattening geese until fatty
infiltration of the liver has set in and that organ weighs
from two and one-half to three pounds, is practiced on
a large scale about Strasburg, Germany, and to a less
extent about Toulouse and elsewhere. The birds are
usually confined in small, dark cages, where they can
move only a few inches, and are fed two or three times

146 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

a day, commonly with all the ground maize or wheat
flour paste they can be made to eat. When they have
become very fat, usually at the end of about three
weeks, they are killed and the livers removed.

The livers, which are perhaps no more abnormal
than the flesh of an overfat hog, commonly appear in

Tig. 34—KILLING DEPARTMENT OF AN ENGLISH DUCK
FARM

our markets in jars or tins in three distinct forms:
Foie gras au naturel, pate de foie gras (by far the most
popular), and puree de foie gras. The foie gras au
naturel is simply the liver preserved without any
dressing. The pates are made of large pieces of the
liver, cooked and dressed with truffles and other con-

MARKETING TURKEYS AND WATERFOWL 147

diments. These pieces are fitted into cans by trim-
ming off the edges, and are covered with melted goose
fat or suet. Many persons find the flavor of the goose
fat too strong and prefer the suct. The trimmings of
the liver in the pates are preserved with truffles, etc.,
and sold as puree de foie gras.

English duck raisers mostly prefer the Aylesbury
variety. At eight or nine weeks the Aylesbury weighs
about six pounds. Such foods as ground oats, barley
and rice, alsu bran, take the place of the corn meal and
bran so largely fed in America. Meat scrap and tallow
are used freely. Ducks are killed by cutting the large
veins of the head. Some killers let the carcass become
cold before picking in order to prevent tearing, but
this practice makes the process of picking more slow
and difficult. The feathers around the neck and head
are left on, as shown in Figure 34, a duck killing
room, from a photograph kindly loaned by Mr. Peter
Walch, who markets about 20,000 ducks per year from
his farm in Lancashire, England, a part of which is
shown in Figure 35.

HONVY MONG HSIIONA NV JO INIWLYVdad INVANI wwWI—ce ‘Shy

aG

CHAPTER XIII
FINISH AND SHAPING

HE farms of the land need to produce not only
more poultry, but better poultry. Think for a
moment where the bulk of the meat on a fowl is
placed. It is on the breast and the thighs.

There is practically no meat elsewhere. Then how
foolish to go on breeding year after year from birds that
are flat in breast and scant in thighs.

The illustration, Figure 36, “Breast and Thigh
Development,” shows a side view of the average fowl

Fig. 86—BREAST AND THIGH DEVELOPMENT

in the market. The breast flesh ought to go out to
the dotted line, then there would be twice as much of
the white meat, and it would cost no more to bring
the bird to maturity. The middle figure of the same
illustration shows a cross section of the average market
fowl, the dotted sections showing the breast meat.--Breed
a round, wide-breasted bird and the breast meat would
come out to the dotted lnes and double the amount
produced. Look carefully to the shape of the breeding
stock and select birds that are built to carry a large
amount of breast and thigh meat.

The best market fowls carry the white meat not
only on the breast proper as at b in the third figure
of the illustration, but also well back between the legs
at a. Much of the market poultry fails to be thick-

150 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

meated at this point, a, and this is a vital defect. The
pure bred Wvyandottes, Plymouth Rocks and Rhode
Island Reds are especially noted for carrying a gener-
ous quantity of white meat not only upon the breast,
but also well back between the legs, and this is one
of the reasons for the market popularity of these
two breeds.

There is no reason to suppose that any of the
breeds used for market poultry in Europe are at all
superior to the standard American general purpose
breeds. In fact, some of the foreign breeds have dark
lees, blue meat and other peculiarities that would make
them unpopular in American markets. The excellence

Fig. 37—SsHAPED SUSSEX FOWLS
(Breast upward and breast downward)

of the best grades of foreign poultry is due to care and
artistic finish during the whole process from feeding
pen to market. With the same care and the use of
the various special processes, American grown poultry
is found able to compete in foreign markets, securing
nearly or quite as high prices.

The appearance of some English dressed poultry
(turkeys, ducks, ete.) at the cattle club show, Smithfield,
England, is well brought out in Fugure 37. The chief

TINISH AND SHAPING 151

peculiarities of the English method are: Killing by
wringing the neck, not by chopping or sticking;
feathers are left on the neck for a few inches from
the head, also a few feathers on tail and tips of wings;
the breast bone is sometimes broken down by pressing
it to one side with the thumbs, and the wings are
twisted to the back of the bird.

The French exhibit is especially well staged, show-
ing its merits to best advantage. The specimens are of
large size, very clean and white and well finished

Fig. 88—sHAPED FOWLS (French)

by shaping as described elsewhere. They are shown
back uppermost, while English and American exhib-
itors place them breast up. The methods by which
the finest grades of foreign poultry are fattened and
finished for market are fully explained in this work.

Shaping (E. R. Brown)—Although French sys-
tems of shaping are practically unknown in this
country, it is desirable to refer to them, as for the
finer qualities of fowls they might be adopted in many
eases with advantage. The first is that most common
in France. In this case a board, from fifteen to eighteen
inches long and five to eight inches wide, in accord-

152 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

ance with the size of the fowl, is used. In this board,
Figure 40, which is usually one inch thick, are driven
eight pegs at equal distances. When the bird is killed
it is quickly plucked, and the head, legs and inner bowel
most carefully washed. It is then laid breast down-
ward on the board, and the back pressed in with the
hand, causing the ribs to crack slightly and loosening
the breast muscles. When this-is done the fowl does

Fig. 39—sHapep pourtry (La Bresse)

not again return to its normal shape, and the meat
being forced to the breast of the fowl, gives that flat
appearance which is so desirable. The hocks have
already been tied with the wings through them. When
placed in position upon the board the rump and crop
are supported by pads of stout paper, or small blocks
of wood, covered with cloth, in order to keep the fowl
level. A strong linen cloth which is first dipped in
milk and is the length of the bird’s body, is very
tightly drawn over the back, and the eight tapes,

POULTRY TFEEDING AND FATTENING 153

Figure 41, provided for the purpose, are tightly
attached to the pegs of wood, the head and neck hang-
ing down at one end. The whole is then drenched with
cold water, and left to set. Such a system, although
apparently giving great trouble, is very simple, and
brings out all the best qualities of a fowl. These
shaping boards can be made very cheaply, at the cost
of a few cents each, and the lady members of any house-
hold can make the linen cloths.

Another system, which is found almost exclusively
in the La Bresse district of France, is peculiar to that
country, and to it is due the unique shape of La Bresse

J f J

LW i

Fig. 40—FrENCH SHAPING BOARD

fowls. Small poultry keepers and great fatteners alike
adopt this method. Every fowl, no matter how small
its price, is prepared in the following way: For this
purpose two cloths are used, the first a piece of fine
linen, and the second an oblong piece of coarse linen
or canvas. ‘The shape of the former does not matter
so much but the latter requires to be of a certain make.
So soon as the fowl is killed it is plucked, and whilst
warm, wrapped, first in the fine linen, and then in the
coarser material; the latter is drawn very tightly, either
by tapes or cords passed through holes provided for the
purpose, or is sewed up with fine strings. These cloths

154 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

envelop it completely. It is stitched first from the
stern up to the hocks, and then along the body to the
neck, the legs being laid on either side of the breast
and encased with the cloth. The fowls are dipped in
cold water and allowed to remain in this position from
twenty-four to thirty-six hours. When taken out they
have a sugar-loaf shape, the head being at the apex and
the stern at the base. The effect of this system is to
smooth the skin and give it a very pleasing appearance.
The shape of this cloth is shown in Figure 41, at
the right.

Whatever the system adopted of shaping, it is a
most important point that the bird shall be plucked
carefully, and it is customary in some parts to employ
the services of what are called “stubbers.” If any of
the feathers, especially the short quills, are left in the
flesh, they will depreciate the appearance of the fowl.
Fowls are singed immediately after being plucked,
and stubbed.

The Sussex System—Shaping is carried out in
Sussex, England, as part of the process, but in a very
different manner than that just described. There can
be no question but that the appearance of the fowls is
improved thereby. This system is so simple that it can
be adopted at very small expense, the shaping boards
being easily made. An illustration of Canadian shaped
poultry, Figures 42 and 43, shows a shaping board built
in three rows, and capable of holding thirty to thirty-six
birds at one time. For smaller producers it can be built
with one row, and the cost of material for construction
of the large size would not be over one dollar. Each
trough is made V-shaped, the front of which is rather
narrower than the back. These troughs consist of only
twelve pieces of wood, namely: (1) The two upright
ends, thirty-six inches by seven inches; (2) three
troughs, each made of two pieces at right angles, the

FINISH AND SHAPING 155

back board six inches wide and the front five inches,
and thirty inches long; (3) the bottom stay; (4) three
loose boards, half an inch shorter than the troughs and
four inches wide. It is hetter to use smooth boards
five-eighths or three-quarters inch thick, and fit the
whole firmly together.

The operation is as follows: As soon as the birds
are plucked, which should be done carefully and thor-
oughly, the hocks are tied loosely together, so the legs

Fig. 43—FRENCH SHAPING CLOTHS

are flat against either side of the breast. Before doing
so some of the most skillful fatteners draw the meat
upward by means of the hands, and this undoubtedly
improves the appearance of the bird, though it must
be done carefully to prevent breaking of the skin. The
operator strikes the stern against a wall, thus flattening
and making it fit the shaping trough more easily. Hach
bird is laid in the trough breast down, with the neck
and head hanging over the front. The first bird is
pressed firmly against the end of the trough, and a
glazed brick or weight laid by the side to keep it in

156 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING

position. When the second and succeeding birds are
placed in the trough the weight is moved along until
quite full. It is necessary that they should be packed
firmly and tightly in this way. Next a loose board,
four inches wide, and half an inch shorter than the
trough, is laid upon the back of the fowls, just behind
the wings. Upon this are placed three or four heavy
glazed bricks, or two weights of fifty-six pounds, and
the fowls are allowed to remain in the trough for several

Fig. 42—cHICKENS IN CANADIAN SHAPING BOARDS

hours, in fact, until they are quite cold and set. When
taken out they have the appearance shown in Figure 43.
In all such matters it is desirable to study appearance
and what are the market requirements. For Londou
trade it is necessary to send birds so shaped in order to
secure the best prices. Of course shaping does not add
one iota to the weight, nor anything to the edible value.
But it is none the less important, for the eye is the
inlet to the pocket as to “the soul.”

FINISH AND SHAPING 15%

American Methods—At the Canadian poultry
stations the method of shaping is practically the same
as the English or Sussex method. When the chickens
are plucked they are put on a shaping board. That
may be a board about six inches wide, placed against a
wall and making with the wall an angle of about ninety
degrees. Or it may be a V-shaped trough with that
angle. As soon as each chicken is plucked, its legs are
placed alongside its breast. The stern of the chicken

Fig. 43—cHICKEN IN CANADIAN SHAPING BOARD

is pressed into the angle of the shaping board or trough.
Each bird is laid in with its breast downward, a glazed
brick or other weight is laid on top, another brick is
put alongside to keep it in position until the next
bird is pressed closely there. After the row is full the
chickens are left lying on their breasts with sufficient
weight to hold them firmly and crush the breast bones
slightly, but not so as to break them. While they are
in this position the body is partly drained of the blood
which collects in the neck. They are left there to cool
and set, and then are packed in crates for shipment.

Page

Anatomy of fowls.........0.+++ 45
Animal food ......... . 51
Barley for poultry. . 49
Beets, feeding ... . 63
Bleeding a fowl..... . 113
Block for behead ng.. eal dd)
Bone, amount required | 55
as an egg food...........- 56
for chicks and ducklings 57

fresh green
meal for chicks ...
and meat meal

SCRA) cep esciiareeiisicns
value of ....... . 56
Board for shaping ............ 152

Boston market, poultry for. ae
Boxes, marking
Breeds for fattening.

Broilers, care of ............065 33
dressing and marketing 35
PECOII ET © ceacewidiereceslatesecomrccieoers 34

finishing for market .
killing

plumping . 36
squab 35
starting .. . 35
to finish . 35
winter ..... ier}
Broiler plant, a... 32,
Brooders, care Gee 25
Brooder chicks, feeding.. 26
Buckwheat for poultry. . 49
Cabbage for poultry.... 63
Canada, progress in .. 104
Canadian fattening 76

methods

Capons, dressing
finishing: cece. ca5 7
packing .... 2c the
profit in . 70

PA OMN LOM Larccssuncrscraavnrganesiasce 67
Chicago market, poultry for.125
Chickens, experience with..

Waite: avn: sso steed 167
specially fattened 7
Chicks, feeding ..... . 20
PTS SOM Zetec cannon wool

treatment for chilled.

variety for

young, feeding ....
Cloth for shaping ..
Clover pasture
Condition powders
COOKING FOO) sseciccieces
Cooling for market
Cooping and care...
Coops for fattening

97,
for feeding chick.

3/Crates for fattening Ns
9\Curtice, on feeding chicks.

3\Egg food, homemade ..

§| Experience

Coops for live shipment
for machine fattening .
Corn for poultry
meal for chicks

Development of breast and
thigh 149
Digestive organs ..
Dressing broilers ...
ducks and geese ..
for family trade ..
method of
squabs
table for ...
western method
Droppings an indication
Duck farm, English ......
feeding, experiment in.
raising, expert Fi
Ducks, breeding, food for.....
cost per pound
cost of raising ......
English, feeding of .
fattening ..
feeding .
POAT BS estas ai scraanlensonige
killing and dressing ..
milk for
rule for feeding ..
young, ration for....
Ducklings, meat for ...

DBO ANIG EI oo ccacs ohenarteavsis sunsets
English method, summarv of.
with chickens....
Export, chickens for
Mat, T6eding sasccecon,

hens, to reduce ......
Fattening, American .

UTNE; OIE io cracoreinevere sierercker ase

artificial

breeds for .

by hand .......

by machine, cost of .

Canadian ..

Bnguish~ sec.04 00.4
English method of
English expert ..
experience in

APE ONIN) arcs tcc
geese

German .......
Iowa method ...
machines, English

main points in

INDEX : 159

Page
Fattening, requirements for.. 79 Mere etne, sen sain wee ieesescctanes went
MICK sag conscpeuesenem nein, 110 squabs ... E
Feeding by hand.. 92] turkey

by machine ... 3;/Meat and bone compared.

.in yards -109) and grain compared ....
in molting sez - 44] location of ........0005
science of ... 48 PAW. sccvmnsscscee
variety in -». 9| results from
Felch’s meal bread euiye. AL. WER CS sae poyeteeeiecs ot ass
Fish for poultry .......... ... 60/Methods, spe
Food, amount required ....... 48|Milk for chicks..
Ul Rye) sais att sear saiessscans odie ... 61/Millet for chicks............
COO KANE os. ccecsinyozectentaiodaisye ... 14|Molting season, feeding in.... 44
for machine feeding . 86/Muskrats as poultry food.... 64
for young chicks « 10;Nuts: for: POUltrys. a.ccs. aes 64
TOQUE. eis cesieraie 105Oats for fattening . aad OE
Foods, Belgian . «.101| for poultry ..cc.5-. . 49
special ... 51] in fattening ....... 101
various .. . 65)0atmeal for chicks 22
Fowls, exercise for .. . 41/Overfeeding ......... 45

feeding in winter .. . 0)Owls’ Nest far

rations for ........ 39|Packing and shipping.
stall fed .... selO4|: (EXPERT. eases seseoeres e213
VANICUY: TOR ceisieinascis dS ciernsee ... 41/Picking, details of. 118
watching condition of parr A2]! SCUPROVS) “iuscscostiassenins 136
Funnel fcr cramming ......... 93)/Pinfeathering 14
OTD RS, incpcusaanaecwnae . 66 Pomace ........... eee. - 66
Geese, dressing .143)Poultry, dry picked ... 122
fattening ..... 144, English, weight of... Si
livers of .. a146)) LACKS: soseses: ct . 48
German methods AOL) LAMY ose ec cee -128
Gluten, MEAL ancchiicsersie werscareraseens . 65) fancy, French ... _ 74
Grain and meat compared.... 54| for choice trade 111
mixture for chicks ....... 4 2). MAMtY. INy jeienseaneemea 74
Grains for fowls ..... . 87 Prices of fancy poultry.. 78
scorched ...... . 65 Profit in fattening ............. 86
standard . 49 Protein, need of for chicks... 10
various ..... . 49 Quick fattening method...... 110
Green food ..... . 62 Ration, a developing. 14
food for chicks . . 21 Rations, balanced 48
food for fowls. . 88\_ balanced for chicks . ve 10
food for poultry . 51 Rice for poultry....... ier BA
TIE TOY CHICKS: co ccwninncccams 11, 21\Rye and clover.. .. 62
Hens on Maine college farm. 43Scalding .......... ..116
Horsey fleshy ase asaccacruantan une 58; method of aval
Hunter, A. F., on chicken POULTRY cevinsracnesay 126
feeding shsicfetice aye a tae. cageeroe ees 19 Scraps in fattening 100
Icing for F auinment AG) FARIS. csxeseede da cwins £65:
EOUNINE, Dale. js cahanccccs 117Sereenings ......... 65
QUERS occiecsyen -117 Seed mixture for chicks. rer {i
English method of . 51 Selection of lavers....... 42

CRETE chile wean stanen 13 Shaped fowls, French....... i151
French method -118 Shaping, American method..157

42 Shipment, icing for.. te Geile

knife for’ «.. ccc .116 board, Canadian
method: “Of ssscses gees .195) board, French
methods of compared . PUTT (CIO se eect cicascean tiers,
SOU Se: Siarsisesicscvaseas traicrsteistayoes -131) English method ...
Knife for killing .116 La Bresse method BY
PAIGE: LOR cwavie-cecss -117 Shelter for chicks.. . 4
126

Layers, selecting ......

Live poultry, shipping. 1127 Shipping box, Canadian 129
Machine feeding ....... sefeae Sel. IM COODS: tristeza es « lot
Machines, increased use of ... $1 Shrinkage, amount of 127
Market, preparing for ......... (120 Skimmilk 7............- 61

Marketing DEOUCKS! < ca sceseedee 35. feeding EAMES ELEN PUES

luv INDEX

Page

Small broilers, growing....... 28/Turkeys, feeding young...-.---
Sour £00@) sssacugn ce means -. 66} killing | :

Special food crop..
Squabs, marketing
Sulphur in fattening.
Table for dressing ...
Tallow for fattening...

Troughs, English shaping....154;Whey cream
Turkeys, Christmas ........... 135/Winter chicks,
dressing -115, 134)Wringing the neck

English
fattening

..130] shipping
100} Thanksgiving
121/Turtle as a poultry food
.. 98|Vegetables for chicks..
Tankage, STOUNG: seececcsrciersss'srers 65)Wheat for poultry .

138)Yards,

ity
iy