rOULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING GEORGE B.riSKE Cornell lllniversit^ Xibrari? OF THE IRew JDorf? State College of agriculture 1633 Cornell University Library SF 487.F55 1908 Poultry feeding and fattening, including 3 1924 003 142 811 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003142811 1^ Q C c H 03 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 George B. Fiske Author of Poultry Architecture, Poultry Appliances, Etc. NEW YORK : ORANGE Jl/DD COMPANY 1908 Copyright, 1904 Orange Judd Company TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Introduction 7 Chapter I Thrifty Qrowtli 9 Chapter II Expert Chicken Feeding 19 Chapter III Broiler Eaising 25 Chapter IV Nutrition for Layers 37 Chapter V Special Foods 51 Chapter VI To Finish and Dress Capons 67 Chapter VII The Art of Poultry Fattening 73 Chapter VIII Lessons from Foreign Experts 92 Chapter IX American Fattening Methods 103 Chapter X At Killing Time Ill Chapter XI Preparing for Market 120 Chapter XII Marketing Turkeys and Waterfowl 133 Chapter XIII Finish and Shaping 149 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS A Modern American Duck Farm Frontispiece Feeding Brooder Chicks 29 Broilers Ready for Market 30 Broiler Raising- on a City Lot 33 A Good Layer 43 A Poor Layer 43 Anatomy of a Fowl 47 Meats and Grains Compared 53 Dressed Capon C8 Coops for Fattening: 85 Cramming Fowls in Large Plant 87 American Poultry Cramming Machine 89 English Feeding Machine 89 Canadian Feeding Machine in Operation 91 Funnel for Cramming 93 Fattening and Killing Sheds, Prance 95 English Fattening Pen 97 English Fattening Shed 99 Frame of Fattening Crate 104 Chickens in Canadian Fattening Crate 105 Fattening Chickens at Bondville, Quebec 106 Fattening Crates with Board Shelter 107 Process of Dressing Poultry 112 Picking a Carcass 114 Knife and Where to Cut 116 Killing Bag and Knife Guide 117 Beheading Block 119 Table for Dressing Fowls 121 Dressed Poultry Well Packed 123 Fowl Dressed for Family Trade 128 Canadian Shipping Box 129 Turkeys Packed and Marked 137 Duck Picking 141 Pair of Dressed Ducks 143 Killing Department of English Duck Farm 146 English Duck Ranch, General View 148 Breast and Thigh Development 149 Shaped Sussex Fowls 150 Shaped Fowls, French 151 Shaped Poultry, La Bresse 152 Shaping Board, French 153 Shaping Cloths, French 155 Chickens in Canadian Shaping Boards 156 Canadian Shaping Trough in Use 157 INTEODUCTION" THE weak point in general poultry books has been 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 sufScient 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 VIU INTRODUCTION is treated in detail. The chapters on fattening and j)i'eparing for market are intended to be very complete on a subject scantily covered in other books. Few realize how much room exists for imjjrove- 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. CHAPTEK I THRIFTY GROWTH CHICK feeding is sometimes a very simple matter. If they are strong stock, hatched in the most favorable season and given wide range, thoy 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, freqiieney, variety and adaptation in feeding chicks always pays, and is in fact necessary for cold weather chicks, those of fceljle 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 gio-wn 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 reqiiire 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 cheaply 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 great mass of soft food — suflSeient 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 Ehode 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 push young chicks along and keep them in health, there is nothing better than boiled eggs mashed up, shells and all, with two or three times their bulk of stale bread crumbs, or cracker 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 THKIFTY GEOTVTH 11 out eggs, either raw or hanl-ljoiled 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 young- sters. After they get to be three weeks old cracked corn and wliole 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. iSTo tonic or stimulant should be needed at this age, Init if a brood gets suddenly chilled, a dose of some good condition powder will help to put them on their feet again. EXPERIEN'CE I^' FEEDING TOUNG CHICKS I 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, 111. The first ten days I fed them on bread crumbs, after dipping the bread in milk to moisten it. After 12 POULTRY FEEDIXG AND FATTENING that I feed them on coarse corn meal moistened, but not very wet, until they are old enough to eat cracked grain. All the time they have plent}' 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, 111. 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. Tlie 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 THRIFTi' GROWTH 13 older, they are not feci 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, A^a. 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 m^eal. 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 aljove I give them the lawn clippings and waste fruit. They are fed five or six times a daj^ — [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 bay 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 materialljr as compared with the price of it when bought by the pound or "quarter's worth." EoUed 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, Kansas. Best Developing Bation — For developing thorough- bred fowls as well as for laying hens, 1. K. Feleh recom- mends the following ration where the grains can be procured at reasonable prices : Five pounds beans, ten pounds each wheat bran and barky, and fifteen pounds each oats and corn. These are tlioroughly mixed and ground fine. For the morning meal take four parts of this and one part ground l)eef and scald over night. Expert Diich Uaisiiig — The following summary is prepared by G. IT. Pollard, an extensive and promi- nent poultryman of Bristol county, j\Iass. : 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 'i'S'ater and would slightly warm the drinking water. I never cook the food. As a rule it seems to mo 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 3'ou can make a saving in the amount of labor. We start the j'oung ducks on the ahove-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 tlie younger ones wliich come along. In an ordinary mash you 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 THKIFTT GROWTH 15 to chicks to drink because they get it all over them- selves, which makes them anything but pretty birds. Wg 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 half 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 food as it is possible to give them, but this theory will not work on ducks. We carrj' 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 meal, 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 an 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 tlie appetite of the duck is much larger than that of the hen. Experiments in Feeding Duels — 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. P. 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 13.35 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 52.3 pounds of corn, 25.9 pounds of bran, forty-six pounds of lettuce and 44.3 pounds of skimmilk. The total cost of a pound of gain was 4.84 cents. In discussing the THRIFTY GROWTH 17 jorolits 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 oiinces at the close of the test. The cost of a pound of gain was 5.05 cents. What to Feed Young Turheys, 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 dav, 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 plentj^ 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, Init they should always have a handful of grain at nigiit. CHAPTEE II EXPERT CHICKEN FEEDING BY A. F. HUNTER THE first rule for getting a goncl profit from poultrj' is to liatch the cliiclvens early. Equally' important is tlie second — keep them growing so that they will come to laying maturity hy jSTovember 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 tliem for their first meal. To be sure, biddy gobbles about all of it. No matter. She has worked hard, half starving herself to bring forth this f)romising little flock, and a good feed now will help to make her contented and hajsp}', 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 witli 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. A'ale, 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 brouglit 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 \voody fiber enveloping the most nutritious parts of seeds and grain is ground into atoms, also the nutritious parts thus prepared for digestion and assimilation. Some gritty substance is absolutely essential; for, without it, the gizzard cannot EXPERT CHICKEN FEEDING 31 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 i;at, 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. Tlie 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 AND 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 thoronghly 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" whieli 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. EXPEKT CHICKEN FEEDING 23 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 cracked barley (the latter is a by-product of a cereal manufactory, and an excellent food), and about iive 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, wliich is mixed in with the coarsest oatmea] (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 tlieir 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 crumbs, 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 ; l)ut 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 do-mi, 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 ofE to the butcher, the houses cleaned up and whitewashed and the piullets moved in. CHAPTER III BROILER RAISING TPIIiS 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 hatcliing 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 10.3. 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. x\fter that ninety- five degrees is about right for the remainder of the first week, after which reduce the temperature five degrees each week imtil seventy degrees is reached. An even temperature seems the key to raising healthy winter chicks. Visiting the Rhode Island poultry school in 1901, the writer saw 600 in a room fifteen by twenty-eight feet heated by steam pipes and radiators to a uniform temperature of about seventy- two degrees day and night, except for the first few days of the chickens' 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 on 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 warra 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 grains 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 tlirive. 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 preferaljle, 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 suffi- 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 otliers apparently without harm. As the chickens grew older meat scraps were substituted. The-e 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 Buggestion 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 seed, 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 : ]\Iix four parts cracked corn, two of fine cracked corn, one of rolled oats, one- half of millet, one-half of broken rice, one of gi'it, 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 FEEDIIJG AND FATTENING Avatcr, mixed the scraps vitli it and covered the mass until it was vrcU steamed. This masli seems to hasten the growtli of the cliicks. While it seemed necessary to feed tlie j'oungest cliicks rather oftener, tliose ten da)'s old were fed mash in the morning, green food at noon, and dry seeds at night, allowing them to fill tlieir 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 witliout causing much dust or dirt. An illustration, Pigure 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 tlio same good results. Tor 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 after hatching as the weather iDormits. Growing Small Broilers — Poultry specialties are becoming still further specialized. Most of the large growers have some special sulj-branch to which they devote more attention and from which they get the greater part of their profit. At Owls Kest Parm 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 insigniiicant for any use, but the swell clubs i4 f^ oO POULTRY i'KKDING AXD FATTEN] N(! and high-clays hotels in Boston are glad to pay seventy- five cents for them in winter and spring. (See Figure 2.) Owls Kest 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 BKOILEES DRESSED FOR MAIiKET summer and fall. Incubators are started the last third of January, and from 8000 to 10,000 chickens are hatched out during the year. Tlio l)reeds used for broilers are Wyandots and Plymouth Bocks. Said Superintendent Woodlnnd: "Even for light weight broilers such as wc produce, the small Ijrceds like the BEOILEE EAISING 31 Leghorns are not satisfactorj'. They need to be two weeks older than the Pljmouths 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 corn 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 si.x; inches from the floor of the pen. Sand is filled iu 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 by incubators and brooders, and by comparison with hens which are used some years we find that we can hatcli and raise twenty-five per cent more chicks by using incubators and brooders. "In finishing off chickens for market, something depends upon our orders. AVhen 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 o2 POULTRY 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. Cliickens 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 tlie 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 da}^ 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 aJid 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 tlian in tho raising of broilers. The following account of a city broiler plant is by W. j\I. Hayes, Hampden county, Mass.: "My lot is fifty l^y 150 feet, with a two-tene- ment house and stable that accommodates nine horses and sheds to cover wagons, sleighs, etc. The brooder quarters, as sho\in in Figure 3, occuj^y the second floor of the wagon shed, fourteen by fifty-two feet. The only heat obtained is from tlie brooder stoves. "The brooders are arranged in a series, side by side, each two and one-lialf by four feet and without hovers. They are entirely homemade afl'airs and I consider them as practical as any without a regulator. One of the incubators holds 3G0 to 400 hens' eggs, the other 110 eggs. My first hatch was December 3. Prom then until summer I hatched 1279 chicks and raised as BUOIUiK HA18ING 33 broilers or sold to he raised lOor. I hatch thoroughbred stock, as such sell more readily. I sold several hundred at fifteen to seventy-live cents each, according to size and age, to be raised. 'J'huse that reached broilers so as to dress one and one-half pounds brought at whole- sale $1.20 per pair and •'^f .."jU to private trade. "The most delicate part of this business is to raise them. Where there is no room to spread out growini- stock, one must almo^t li\e with them to be able to Fig. 3 — BUOILER E.VI.SIXG QUAIITEI:; ox A CITY LOT satisfy their needs. They must be kept clean and healthy. I have learned tliat it is not any particular kind of food tliat is sure to raise the little artificially hatched orphans; more ilepcnds on proper temperature, ventilation and clcanliiiess than any prescribed method of feeding. 84 POULTRY FEED1K(} AND FATTENING "The first three or four hours after taking from the incubator^ put them in a clean brooder tliat has been heated to ninety degrees with top licat. Tlie 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 sj^aringly 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. I have constantly before them in self- feeding boxes dry wheat bran, grit, charcoal and bono meal. I am often surprised to see how much dry bran they eat. At three weeks I give one feed a day of warm mash until nine weeks old, ■when the}' lun-e all hard grain. "Chicks like a variet_y, 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 tlioir curious way to see what is to come next. I 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. "If you use a brooder house in the second stor}', 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 eggs with good, strong germs, which are most essential in raising chickens. I do not believe it is possible to produce good, strong-germed eggs from fowls that are closely confined; give them lots of range." BKOILEK RAISING 35 Small Broilers — Chickens hatched in December can be sold at eiglit 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. Eudd. To 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 Feljruary, 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 Avinter quarters about October 15. Dressing and Marlceting 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 I'EEDING AND FATTENING leave them undrawn. If shipped in warm weather we cnisli ice and put in a la3'er 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 barrel. If picked in cold weather use brown paper to line barrel, also use as laA'crs between broilers. In scalding, do not scald head. If you do, it will look pale and white and make the chick look as if it was sick when killed, but if not scalded 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. arc through picking and have the barrel full, throw som.e salt in the water over them. It will draw the blood out of the skin and make them show up white. Leave tliem in cold water until thoroughly cooled out, which will take from six to eight hours in hot weather. — ■ [Burt Curry, Tennessee. CHAPTEE IV NUTRITION FOR LAYERS FOWLS, even more than any other class of livu 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 a rule the trouble on the farm is that after corn is gathered there is an overabundance of grain 38 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING Ij'ing around and in consequence the fowls become too fat. All farmers have hay to spare^ at least they should have, and a few pounds jjer week fed to the hens will greatly increase the egg production. Clover hay is best, but any kind is good. Teed 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 lieat again, then drain oft the water and mix with the hay three quarts of wheat bran, or enough to make it crumbly, adding three pounds animal meal or scraps. This will make two gallons of feed. Give it to 100 hens as a morning feed. Eemember 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 tlie 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 tliat wheat contains a large jjer cent of starch also, and that it will fatten poultry almost a« 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 a.s 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 PODLTRY FEEDING AXD 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. Eeliable 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 worlv for their food, by throwing the grain among a litter 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 Februarj' 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, a.ud tlu'u 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 tliem 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 com 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, cracked 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 na 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 a,- 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 d&wn 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, shoidd 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, etc., if the owner has his experienced eye on the birds them- selves, and understands tlie 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 jDicture, Figure 5, of A Poor Layer depicts another member of the same flock whicli laid only thirty-four eggs in tlie same period. A record NUTRITION FOR LAYERS 43 of the best layers is being kept at the llaine experi- ment station with the aid of trap ni'sts. From the •A GOOD LAYER best hens will be raised botli cockerels and ])ullets with the aim of building a strain remarkable for heavy Fig. POOR LAYER laying. Some of the poor hens might have been picked out on sight as laz}' and beefy in appearance, but in 44 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING other cases the bad layers seemed as smart, well formed and vigorous as anj'. The trap nest is the only sure way unless each hen tested can be kejDt 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 j'ards 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 starchy grains is evidenced by largely increased egg production of 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 N"ew 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 — as 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. NUTRITION FOE LAYERS 45 etc.) with -ground grain, it is possible to feed a some- what narrow ration without feeding an excessive amount of meat. Witli 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. Wliat 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, behinl 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 TEEUING AND PATTENING The small stones swallowed by the fowl are found in the gizzard, and naturalists say they facilitate the ojDeration 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, fibroiis 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 ±owl and produce a liquid thick and slimy, but the quantity is very small. The liver is very large and divided into two loljes of equal size. The gall bladder is attached to the liver and contains a thick bile, very bitter. The pancreas pours a fluid into tha 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, which has been turned aside to show the tongue, the pharynx and the entrance to the larynx. The left lobe of the liver, succentric ventricle, trizzard and intestinal mass have been pushed to the right to exhibit the different jiortions of the alimentary NUTKITION rOK LAYERS 47 canal and to exjiose the ovary and oviduct. 1, tongue ; 2, pharynx; 3, first portion of the oesophagus; i, Fig. 6 — ANATOMY OP A FOVTL (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 48 POULTBY TEEDIXG AND FATTENING of the game; 11, origin of the floating jjortion 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 tliere 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 da}^ On this ration the hen could be expected to produce from sixteen to thirty pounds of eggs. One j)ouncl of eggs may be produced from about three-fourths pound of water-free food, and one pound of dry matter of egg's 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 clay, containing about tliirty- 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 7/ouiig. 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. NUTKITION I'Olt LAYERS 49 These rations are for grain feed; green food and extraa 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 variet}'. Some of these gi-ains 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 ri^sually 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. Bvit 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 bre,ij,d 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 ana rolled oats are good chick food and easily fed dry. Barley is much like wlieat 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 60 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING low in price or home raised. Buekwlieat middlings are rich in egg material and a good mixture with corn meal. Tlie 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 tliose elements that enter into the com- jjosition of an egg, and their success depends upon the fact that the}^ siipjily material which is often overlooked by those who keep poultry. For instance, ground bone, ground meat, salt and charcoal are ingTedients — 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, wliich may be given to six fowls dailj', using a gill mixed with other food. Egg 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- wisli to use sometliing of the kind, the following formula may be prepared for about thirty-five cents and will give an egg producer as effective as anythmg: Cantharides, ninety grains; ginger, thirty ounces; gentian, one and one-half ounces; capsicum, six ounces ; Venetian red, two ounces ; sulpliur, 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 cjuart of hot mash, M'hich is enough for twelve average fowls. Condition powders are mainly composed of stim- ulating, spice-like drugs, such as gentian, fenugreek, anise seed, ginger, etc. Tlie effects are because of the tonic or stimulating nature of the materials employed. CHAPTEE V SPECIAL FOODS OWING 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 53 POULTRY rEEEiNG AND EATTENING 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 difEerence 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 from vegetable sources. Two trials were made with chickens. In each trial more food was eaten by the lot receiving animal jDrotein, 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 jjer cent more than tliose on the vegetable diet, 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 onlj^ four and one-quarter cents, as com- pared with five and one-fifth cents for the grain- fed birds. During the next eight 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 Aveight more than five weeks before the others; they reached three pounds more than eight weeks sooner, and three pullets of the lot began laying four weeks earlier than any among the grain-fed birds. With the second lot of cliicks, starting at six weeks 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 53 quick, healthy growth and early maturity rather thaa increaying the tendency to fatten. (See Figure 7.) The results trere 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 TotaI_weijKf_atM[ned. Cost ot (ood for ■ ■ I Pound Jain. 4.8 Ibi Meal Drymattei'in food foKltibund jam. S.lJbs. near t clean, but are never let outside of wire fence until fullv grown. If we had known the value of rice as a feed for starting 3'oung chicks, when in the business in California, it would have been several hundred dollars in our pockets, if not thousands. — [I. S. Garnett, Hawaii. Nvfs — When one has an oversupply of nuts, espe- cially black walnuts and butternuts, they can be used SPECIAL FOODS 65 to good advantage among tlio poultry, serving the pur- poKG of meat, the oil in the nuts being of the same nature. Crack them rather fine and tlie fowls will pick the shells clean in a short time. — [Marion Meade, Illinois. Odds and Ends — ?\"othing excels the scraps which accumulate on the table, including, as they generally do, vegetables, meat, etc. A farmer's table 3delds 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 cliea}) food, being equal to raw corn, pound for pound. If the corn is sugared, so much the better for fattening. Eef'use 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 screcfnings are of doubtful value for fowls, but chicks will eat most of the seeds. Ground ianlcage 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. Eaw 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 POULTUY FJiEDING AND FATTENING containing about forty per cent of nitrogenous matter, and linseed meal fully thirty i)cr cent. The new process linseed meal can be used without bad effects to increase egg 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 cither of these concentrated meals will enable you to use them in the poultry j'ard. Begin feeding them very lightly, and increase as experience shows 3'ou can safely do. ITever 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 sojnc kind. As long as hens thrive on this feed and remain in good health there is no objection to feeding it. tSour food induces bowel troul)le. 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 THE price of dressed capons in season is nearly equal to tiiat of broilers, while the cost per pound to produce is far less. On many farms, a number of young cockerels arc kept througli 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 tlie cockerel and bring five to ten cents more per pound because of his 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 related by W. E. 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 j^ellow 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. I'll;-. S — C-Vrox DUEt-M^U i'OU MAKXJiT 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 eacli 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 "v^'e have found easil}^ 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 diflierent rations tried here for fattening purposes, we have found the following two the best: (a) Two parts ground corn, two parts ground buclvwheat and one part fine ground oats, all by weight; (&) 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 bj but b 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, a 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 he produced without tho 70 POULTRY FEEDING AXD FATTEXING crammer if fed for aljout a week longer, but in our trials tliey lack the uniformity and evenness of con- dition wliicli is characteristic of most crammed chickens." How to Dress Capons — First be sure and not kill them until ero])s are empty, and that tbey are fat. A tliin capon is not as good as an ordinary cliicken, l)ecause 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. Leave 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. Featliers that are removed sliould be saved and will sell if kept dry and clean. Bo careful and keep the capon clean. AVrap paper around head. Appearances add to the sale and of course price. Dr.ESRIXG AXD RELLIXtg CAPONS By F. H. Valentine, New Jersey Tlic demand, consequently the market for capons, is a peculiar one. Wliile there is a very limited demand during the entire year, the bulk of them are sold between the holidays and spring. The turkey holds the place of honor at Thanlvsgiving, 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 tliis season, that manj^, if not all deale-rs, cease quoting prices at other times. Tlie profit in capons is a mooted question. It will not pay to perform the operation on any but the larger Ijrecds, and there are many individuals and many localities wliere it will not pay at all. While good capons usually sell for somewliat higlier prices than TO FIXISH ASD DRESS CAPONS 71 roasting chickens, the difference in price hetween 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 poultrymcn say that there is more profit in Ivceping 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 somCTvhat for different markets, and it is wise for the grower to learn from the dealer or commission merchant in the market to which he pmrposes shipping as to any special demands. They are usually, and always for best markets, dry picked. It is customary witli 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 gro\vn 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 72 POULTRY FEEDIXG AND FATTENING market is padved in barrels, but neat boxes are much Jjetter. A box that holds a dozen large capons is a very good size. They should be joacked breasts up, lieads tucked under out of sight, in nice, even rows, go tluit ^vhen tlie 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 f sliould be marked with the name of the contents, the name of the consignor and consignee, and the gross and net weight, though for oln'ious 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. I have said nothing about the manner of killing, Ijut suppose every jjoultryman knows that the only way for the present-day markets is by sticking in the mouth. Fowls must be well bled, as tliis improves the appear- ance of the flesh. Crops must be completely empty wlien the birds are killed. Nearly all markets require birds to have heads and feet on, and to be undrawn. Formerly, Boston required them dra^Ti, 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 be made during warm weather, icing will be necessary. Large, plump, well-fattened, neatl^'-dressed, attract- . ively-packed birds fill choicest market requirements, and bring satisfactory prices. CHAPTEE VII TEE ART OF POULTRY FATTENING BY H. E. MOSS, NEW YORK THE commercial or iitility side of the poultry industry, -while it has always been the moving power thr.t 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 tlieir influence felt. To these great estaJjlishments 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 l)etter, but only as good poultry as those markets afforded. The reason it could not be done wa.s 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 string}' and tough, and that poultry in this condition V4 ruULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING would be almost unsalable in European markets. The American people with their reckless extravagance are \yilling to 'paj high prices for such poultry because it is 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 tliat not of the best qualit)-, deluding ourselves with the belief that we are eating a delicious morsel simply because we paid a high price for it. ISTo 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 iowl 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, juicy, finely flavored qualities when cooked are the points of excellence. In order to attain this a system of feeding far 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 poultr)^ finishing localit}' perhaps in the world is Le Jlaiis in Nor- mandy. It is not uncommon for choice specimens to sell for twenty and twenty-five francs (four to five dollars) in the Paris markets and not over six piounds 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 ]5ersons as in any other country. THE ART OF POULTnY FATTENING 75 The next most profitable district is the counties of Surre}^, Sussex and Kent, England, where whole families are engaged in it, as were their ancestors for generations back. The}- know nothing else, they never have done and their children never will do anything else but fatten poultry for tlie 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. Ton 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 Ijird having what fat it carries deposited in globules throughout the tissue, rendering it of that superior quality demanded. If these ''falters," 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 Tli POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING not only sending such birds to tlie English markets, but from suppljdng their own with this most desirable meat ? Mr. Charles W. Armour, the head of the Armour joaeking 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 falters, 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. S., and Bondville, Que., the fattening of poultry for the London market is carried on- extensively under government supervision, 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 77 Impose upon us. If we can produce a good article the world wants it, but it will not do for us to trj^ 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 oimces; Pekin ducks, 15 pounds 3 ounces; turkey cocks, 59 pounds 3 ounces; turkey hens, 49 jDounds 10 ounces. There is nothing in the ahove 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- 78 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING dition to take on flesh, but the farmer, urLmindlul of this opportunity to convert feed into meat, ruslies her off to market. The middleman steps in here and with but few dollars invested in capital, uo 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 argTiment: "Poultry — Exchange quotations, hens, alive 5 l-2c ; roosters, young, 20c; old, 15c each; springs, G l-2c ; ducks, Gc; geese, 4c; turkej'S, hens, 5c young; weighing over 7 lbs., 6c ; young gobblers, 5c ; culls, 5c ; pigeons, 50c dozen; squabs, per dozen, $1.25 and $2; dressed poultry, choice scalded stock in good condition brings Ic above live poultry prices." From an adjoining column on tlie 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 piatrons. Besides being unusually tender all the meat is as white as the breast. While these chickens have been fattened primarily for the English trade, their popularity is likely to become as widesj^read 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 IHE AFlT of poultry FATTENING 79 sis and one-half cents, less express and commission cliarges, wlien 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 unfattcned 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 arc 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 cramming machines may be as common as churns. AVe already make a better and cheaper machine than the English. In the meantime let the cry 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 poimds 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 greatest economy in feed and most rapid gain in flesh 80 POULTET FEEDING AND FATTENING will result. For best results, a cramming machine is indispensabla 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 iipon 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 j^ellow 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 jDulling 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 still enough to not run. For machine feeding it is mixed to the consistency of cream. In the latter case the fowls need no water, as tliere 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 skimmilk will take the place of sour milk or buttermilk in the feed. It would cause bowel disorder unless an abundance of green food were fed with the sweet milk, which would make it safer, but tbis would be troublesome and unsatisfactory. Water will not answer at all. THE STOCK TO USE The most desirable birds for fattening are Ph'- mouth Eocks, Wyandottes or Orpingtons. A cross oi Light Bralima with Rocks or Wyandottes also makes a very dcsiralde bird and finisbcs very nicely, taking on flesh rapidly and making a fine appearance on the stalls. The common mixed stock as it comes from the THE AKT 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 neariy grown. The cockerels should be taken before they crow. It is a slow and uncertain task to undertake to fatten matured males profitaljly, 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 Icnowledge of the requirements and habits of the bird or animal we undertake to fatten, and a little experience teaches us how to get the gi'eatest 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 TEJiDIXG AXD FATTENING cramming machines, fattening some 20,000 fowls every month. In this connection, I might state that pre- viouslj' this l^arty ran thirty incubators, raising thou- sands of chickens 3rearly, besides producing thousands of dozens of eggs for tlie 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 part}' also in Iowa using twenty-two cramming machines — a party in Illinois who fattens on a very large scale, fattening thousands yearlj^, 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, la., has a contract for 500,000 ha.nd-crammed poultry. The greatest industry of Clarinda, la., is fattening chickens for the London market. At the central station here butter, eggs and poultry are received from a radius of seventj^-five miles and to the value of $2,000,000 annually. This company is the oldest in Iowa, 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 ci^it. Tlie flavor of the niea-t is much improved and the selling valiie greatly advanced. The process of fattening is not secret, as has l)een 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 by proper food and care. They do the same thing with steers and hogs, and there is no reason why they sliould not fatten their chickens. The feeding machine will eventually be a common TIIK Airr Oi' POULTRY FATTENING 83 adjunct with jTOultry 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 tlie 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. Bi POULTRY FEEDINU AND I'ATTENING Cooping and Care — lu fattening put each bird in a stall by itself, as slio\\n 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 t'\\-o 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 can 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 clone. 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 Fig. 9 — INDIVIDUAL COOPS 86 POULTRY FEEDING AXD 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 can 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, 13 and 13. As to the feed, some use one thing, some another, but 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 j)oint should not be overlooked when very best results are desired. The food should be mixed to a consistency of thick cream, 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 3'our 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 by 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-lialf cents per bird for three weeks. If the bird fed by cramming machine weighs four pounds at start of feeding, it sliould weigh six pounds after fat- ba POULTRY FEEDING AlTD 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 Ijctween actual cost and selling price tliat 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 b' ds. These were fed on one-third bran and two-thirds coarse corn meal, but they did not gain in weight. Th(§ 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. 11 AMERICAN POULTRY CRAMMING MACHINE Pig. 13 AN ENGLISH FEEDING MACHINE 90 POULTRY PEEDIXG AND FATTENING fill it for about every tliird bird. Wlien I had finished the lot, some were heavier tlian wlien originally put in, and some vi'ere 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 those I fattened, and I saw the good dallar 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 hj 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 healtliy than when they are ready for market. Their feathers are sleek, tlieir combs red, their eyes briglit, 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 be a part of the bottom left off at the back for the droppings to go through, otherwise it made an unsiglitly mess. I have the coops THE AKT OF POULTRY FATTENIX(i 91 SO arranged that a great deal of time is saved in feeding. I usually feed from 225 to 250 per iiour, but I have on occasion fed 330. The coops are on legs with a tray FEEDING MACHINE OPERATION 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 ^?III LESSONS FROM FOREIGN EXPERTS BY EDWARD D. BROWN THEEE 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 ma}' 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 art" produced both in England and France are crammed by hand ; but the process is slow, so that it is only suitalile 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 liand, 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 LKSSOXS riiOil FOREIGN EXPEETS 93 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 Ijirds are kept in cages, to which are fitted troughs. Fig. 14 — FUNNEL FOE CEAMMING 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 ISTormandy. In this case the food is made into liquid 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 be 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 describe, but care must be taken, or there is danger of choking the fowl. These funnels. Figure 14, can be purchased at a reasonable jjrice, and splendid quality of flesh is produced in this manner. Crainming hi/ 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 hart 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 13, has a horizontal cylinder, and is operated by a foot lever. A is the reservoir for the food; 5, the pump cylinder ; E, the piston rod ; G, the spring foot pedal and piston back again ; K, nozzle and food tube ; il/,,stop for regulating quantity of food; 0, 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 malvc it ]3ass 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 slips the fore- LESSONS FEOJI FOREIGN EXPEHTS 95 finger into it to hold do-mi the tongue, quickly inserts the end of the tube, and, holding the neck perfectly straight at its full length, pushes it down four or five inches, according to the size of the bird. At this moment the heel 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 Ficr. 15 FEENCIi FATTENING 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 tlie moment sufficient has been placed in the crop. Tlte 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 liquid 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 9G PODLTET TEEDING AND FATTENING in pens without taking tliem out, the liquid flowing when the spring is released. In this case the nozzle only is placed in the moutli, not pressed down the throat. The head mxist be held well up and the neck stretched to allow of easy swallowing. French MetJwds — Without exception, the food in Prance 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. English CMcJcen Faitening — 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 Eobertson, commissioner of agricul- ture for Canada, thus describes a visit to a chicken fattener in Sussex, England: He began life as a farm laborer and is now doing a prosperous business. I woxdd not like to say how much the fattening business brought him in, but I shoidd 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 LESSONS FROil FOEEIGK EXPERTS fl7 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 Fig. 16 — ENGLISH FATTENING PEN five chicks. The coops are made of sticks or rods with a sliding door in front of each compartment. (Sec 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 hulls 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 98 POULTRY FEEDING AND PATTENING is usually fed raw in a Y-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 da3's' feeding and gradually increased to one pound to fifty chielLS. Siunmanj of English Methods — The following rules have been drafted by one of the most successftd south-countrjr f atters : In fattening fowls, the actual amount of food supplied goes onh^ 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. Thej' arc 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 suitalile 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 clays be fed from a trougli, 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 <-<«Wffi Fig. 17 — ENGLISH FATTENING SHED times a week 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 ivill be i^roduced. None whatever is mixed with the food whilst the fowls are being fed from the troughs, but when put onto the crammer, 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 he 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 FliOJI roUKKiX KXPKRTS 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 thciy attain two months. At this latter age many weigli 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 &f 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 &f 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, 103 POI.TLTltY FEEDING AXD FATTENING the whey alone is adopted, and one of the largest fatters sometimes paj's $100 a week for milk during the busy season. Whole milk would not onlj^ be more expensive, but the butter fat in it is not necessary, and other fat can be substituted at a niuch 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 l)y the turning of either milk, buttermilk or whey causing more rapid action than would be the ease 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. CHAPTEE IX AMEBIC AN FATTENING METHODS THE Ijig Kansas City and Chicago paclting 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 alxnit 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 Iniilding. 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. Long 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. It has been discovered that a chicken will eat twice as much if fed regT-ilarly 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 1U4 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING fifteen minutes before feeding they keep tip a contin- uous crowing. Two minutes after the feeding not a sound can be heard in the chiclven department. The food comj)rises a variet)^ of grains ground very fine, cool^ed and fed moist. ThesG stall-fed fowls are becoming very popular at high prices wherever offered. Experiments are being made with the machine poultrj' 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 variet}^, with regular feeding. Progress in Canada — At the new chicken fattening stations in Canada the methods practiced are those by which the Ijest grade of poultry is prepared for the Eig. 18 — FRAME OF CANADIAN FATTENING CR-iTE English market, the object being to fit Canadian poultry to bring the highest prices when exported, but the product is in demand in its home market also, at advanced prices. The chickens are bought from farmers at the weight of three to tliree and one-half pounds live weight, choosing the breeds likely to fatten well, and with white or liglit yellow legs, paying for these thirty- five to sixty c^jn'r^ per pair. AMEIilCAX PATTIAIXG irETIIODS 105 The cliickens firo ])ut in small open lattice coops and fed on ground gfain, cliiefly oats mixed with skimniilk. During the last part of tlie 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 pjor- 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 Fig. 19 TWELVE PLYMOUTH ROCK CHICKENS IN A CANADIAN" FATTENING CRjVTE fed during the last ten days is melted, thickened with meal and then mixed with tlie 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 C.43 cents per pound of live weight gained. For twenty-four hours before killing, the Idrds are not fed. Tliey are Ijled 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 IOC rOfLTRY FEEDING AXD FATTEXIXG brown paper, leaving tlie neck and head projecting ab one end and tlie legs at the other. Shipjiing cases for twelve fowls are n3xl9xG 1-2 inches. The financial side of one ex])eriraent foots up as follows: Cost o£ chickens, fifty-four cents; food, thirty-three cents; ship- ping cases, three cents; freight, commission, etc., eigh- teen cents; total cost, $1.08 ner pair. They sold for $l.vC per pair. Fig. 20 — CRATES OF CIIICKEXS FATTENING UNDER THE TREES AT BONDVILLE, QUE. The result of the second 3'ear'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 Minorcas do not fatten profitably. Tlie fattening of them is like trying to fatten Jersey steers as against Shorthorn bullocks. The Plymouth Bocks and Wyandottes give far lietter results in fattening than the smaller breeds. At AilERICAX FATTEXIXO METHODS 11)7 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 skinimilk. At these rates tlie feed cost 22.3 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 EOUGII BOAIiD 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 thirtj' 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 cla^', the food being placed in the trougli in front, and the dropjoings fall through 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 skinunilk, which was used thick and sour about twice as much b\' weight as of grain. The manure was of some value, and the featliers, averaging four ounces per bird, brought seven cents per pound. Tlie following is the Canadian fattening expe- rience boiled down in a practical wa}' : 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 sliould 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. Kill 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 Wkight. Cost or Feed. ^mT""- '^f' Total Aj'^e" Total ^L'i^e''' 3ll' \, "■ W=s::fe»ilJ 12 F0WL3 WEifiMino — Lbs. SROSS ... I.S3, T/mE .MEI.t. Fiff. 30 CANADIAN SHIPPING BOX when customers have confidence in tlit one furnishing them poultrj', this is not necessary. In exporting cliicl-ens for England, according to the advice of A. S. Baker, an English expert, select those weighing from five and one-half to six poimds each. They should have the head left on, a fringe of feathers left around the head, and the tail and winsf 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 PEEDING AND FATTENING chickens, with, a partition in the center, six fowls on a side, packed heads and tails. Tlie 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 sKould be killed before they get so large that they leave the nests. The standard size is eight pounds to the dozen. With properl}' kept birds this weight is usually attained in four weeks with straight Homers, and five weeks with Dragoons, says William E. Bice 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 comfortal^le 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 slipnooscs. Killing tlie Squabs — Catch a squab from the ham- per, and suspend it by passing one of the nooses around the le,gs, tail and wings, letting about two inches of the ends of the wings project l)eyond the noose, and tighten it well. Insert the killing knife (sold for such pur- poses) well into the back of tlie moutli and draw it forward, cutting clear into the brain. Hang a weighted wire in the bill and let the bird l)lecd. The wire is six I'JiHrAKlXG roil MAKKJiT 131 inches long, hooked and pointed at tlic upper end, and weighted at the Jower end with a piece of lead tlie size of a liulled wahuit. 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 thumi) and fingers of the right hand in the pan of water, and begin picking the neck, leaving about three-quarters of an inch next tlie head unpicked. Still hold the wings in the left hand until the entire front of the bird, leg? included, is picked. Then, bringing the wings in front of the bird, hold in the left hand as before, and remove the balance of featliers from the body. Now, with wings still in left hand, pluck quills from both wings at once, and also the larger feathers, and then finish each wing separately. This completes the "rough picking," after ■\vhich they must be ]iinfeathered, iii 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 tlie 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-fattened birds are seldom torn by the expert picker. The weighted wire is of advantage in slightly stretching the skin and making it less liable to tear. When all the squabs are dressed, the feet and mouths must be thor- ib:i rOULTllY FEEDING AND FATTENING ouglily waslicil of all filth and blood; they elionld be jilaccd again for a fow minutes in clean cold water, and then hung on a drying rack for five minutes to drain. Marliotinrj — If tlie sqnabs arc sold to a local dealer, tliey ma}' 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 l)irds and ice, and finish with a generous top- ping of ice. Only in quite cold weather is it safe to omit ice. Place a secure covering on the package and mark full directions to whom shi]>ped, as well as your own address, and the number of 1hrds. tSquahs for Marhct — If squajjs are killed before they can fly the flesh is white, but after that it darkens, I'educing the value from one to two dollars per dozen. Those raising them for market should keep the old ones Avell supplied with food so that the J'oung nuiy become plump and fat. P. H. 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 hy 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 arc dressed the same way. They are readily selected from capons by the growth of tlieir coml)s and swelling of the spurs. These usually sell for several cents per pound less than the capons. CHAPTER XII MARKETING TURKEYS AND WATERFOWL TJIAN'KSGIVIN'G turkeys brii.g good money to tliosG 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. Turke3's are birds of a roving disposition and will not bear coniinement well. Tliey should be fed at least once, and; better, twice a day all tlirough 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 tlie value of milk for fattening poultry. For two weeks before killing time the turkeys can be 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 u]^ longer than this, or they will lose instead of gain in flesh. Put tliem in a shed not too light, but with an open front to admit air. Provide broad, low perches, ample feed troiighs and dishes for water and milk. Corn meal, lu'an, cooked potatoes, oats and buckwheat are good f atteners ; also a little cheap tallow or suet in the soft food. Tliey cannot digest their food properly without plent}' of gravel or grit. Feed only what food they will eat up clean. P)cfore killing for market keep feed away from them for twent)f-four to thirt^'-six hours, so that the crop and intestines will be well emptied. Hang up by the legs and kill by l)]eeding through the mouth. Plunge the knife through the roof of the mouth into the brain, when the bird' will at once relax and not flutter. Have a barrel near by and strip off the feathers lo-L POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING at once. By being fairly quick one can pick a turkey clean before it has stopped lilccding 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 scalded 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 tlie same methods as given on Page 125 for preparing chickens, but always dry pick turkej's. 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 gobljlers before January 1, as after the holidays the demand is for small fat hen turkeys only, old toms being sold at a discount to canners. A turkey producer and shipper of long experience, J. M. Cooper of Schenectady county, X. Y., thus summarizes 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 1)0 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 turkey, delivered in sound and attractive condition, will sell for much more than one Ijruised, torn and poorly cleaned. This finishing work takes but little time or mono}', yet it pays handsomely. I feed scalded corn meal twice a day and whole corn at night for three weeks before killing. I have never shi]i])od turkeys to market, as there is a good demand for tliem in the city MARKETING TURKEYS AND WATERFOWL 135 near by. In dressing, I always scald ; it is less work and they sell l^etter in our markets. When turkeys are shipped to market, dry picking is best. "If turkeys are mature enough to kill by Thanks- giving, I kill half of the flock two days before the lioliday 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 nntil Christmas and New Year's. Small lots of medium turkeys will sell readily here at any time late in the fall, but large ones are not wanted except at holidaj^s. Turke)'s dressed in the very best shape to suit the market to which the)^ 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 turkej's 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. "I 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 turke3's for every picker before I scald, and dress those before I kill any 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 136 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING water with stulD of an old broom, raise gently np and down to work tlie water under the featliers, and count ten. Then take it complete!)^ out of water to air it, count ten again, tlien 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 turkej'S up to pick. I am very careful not to allow them to be dragged around over anything, or else the skin will Ije broken and make darlc 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 scalded enough, count slower when dipping; if scalded too much, count faster. If thej 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 l)e 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-piclced 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 vent and roll it out so as to fill the hole nicely. Leave the crop in, as it is empty. Lay on a tabic or board on their backs, close together, so as to keep the wings close to the l)ody, with head hanging down, and continue the killing. I take tliem to market one day before the holiday, cut the lieads 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, I can set my own price and get it. My young turkeys bring from $3.50 to $3 each, two-year-old goljblers from $5 MARKETING TUHKKYS AND WATERFOWL 137 to $C. T would take mj' turkeys fifty miles to a large city and market them myself rather than to ship to commjssion merchants. Prom what I have seen in our markets, shipped poultry hrings low prices in competi- tion with choice dressed native stock. Wealthy people do not like 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. 40 210 Clioice Chicks 125 20 105 ADDRESS or COMMrssION MERCHANT. ADDRESS or COMMISSION MERCHANT. k *.* \ IMPttS. , ^ "V. Turkey i RW^if^fll Chicken Boxes 1 p iM jwP 'Ip ■ Boxes 14 X 22 i iMw^MiA/iNi 8x16 X26 1 1 ^^ >m ^rt J X22 'I linp^^^CTill^ Fig. 31 — TURKEYS PACKED AND MARKED The movement and range of prices in former years are shown in the following table, compiled by the New York Produce Eeview, 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 POULTKY FEEDING AXD FATTEXING TURKEYS THANKSGIVING WEEK AT NEW YORK f Pricea K'cm|it«, Thaiikfsiviiii; CloKrd packagL-B WL-L-k "WeduLHaiiy 1903 30,S01 16 ©22 c 17 ffi;20i,ic 19112 24,913 15 ©18 ISVa®!? 1901 34,147 11 (gilS umiVz 1900 40,968 8 @12 9 mO 1899 29,680 lOi/zfi'll'/a 10 ©H 1898 29,141 llV,(5.12y2 10 ©liyz 1897 — 10 ©13 — 1896 30,603 11 (itUVs 12 ®13 1895 29,363 9 (5)12 liy2@12 1894 33,602 8 ©lO 8 ®9 1893 28,233 9 (5)13 S @W 1892 26,972 13 (g)16 13 (5)14 1891 24,358 13 (glG 14 fo'lS 1890 21,007 12 (®16 15 (5,16 1889 26,395 10 (5)13 12 @13 ISSS 31,554 10 (5-14 10 (511 English Melltods — The methods of English turke}^ fatteners, as described by E. II. Brown, include several good suggestions: About five weeks before killing, the turkeys are put up to fatten in a dry, comfortal>le shed, which must be large enough for the number of birds accommodated. Then the nortliern and eastern sides of this shed should be well closed in, but tlie 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 tlian tliree 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 cu.stomers mix the meals with milk, and give milk to drink instead of water, an inexpensive addition if skiuimilk 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 M.VnKETIXG TCHKEYS 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 ease there must be a plentiful supply of coarse gi-it 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 efPective 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 Ducl-s for ilarlrt — 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-tliird 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 twent}^ 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 beef 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 FATl'ENINO 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 he guided by the condition of the market. One oljjection 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 he dressed at that age or not. The cost of caring for tjuun and the cost of grains and meat foods decide the question whether it is Ijest to dress them early or mai'ket 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 beef scrap than to add green food. We usually kill at ten weeks, because at that time they pick l)etter. Beef scraps start the pinfeathers ; the liird that has had very little beef scraps will pick at twelve or thirteen weeks very nicely, but at ten or eleven weeks the pinfeathers start quite freely if the ducks have been fed with beef MARKETING TLKKEYhi AND WATERFOWL 141 scraps. The Pckin duck slioiild bo dry-picked. In the west and in New York state they are scalded quite extensive!}', Ijut 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 Septenil)cr, and from September to November the jirice 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 Fig. 32 — DUCK PICKING (Howard) picking and scalding. Both of these methods are good and are Ijeing 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 tliey 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 112 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 consists 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 arc thrown away and the body featlicrs with the down are thrown into the box. Care should be taken about this, as the feathers from each l)ird will weigh about two ounces, and will quite pay for the picking. The dull knife and the thumb are used to remove the long pinfeatlicrs, 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 minutes is all tlie 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 layer is packed with backs down ; a layer of ice is then placed over them, and all other layers arc packed will: the breasts down, a layer of ice being JIAUKETINO TURKEYS AND WATERFOWL 143 between each la3'cr of ducks. The top of the box or barrel is then rounrled off with ice and covered with Ijurlaps. 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 Fig. 33 — PAii; DKEsaED ducks ten' weeks old (Howard) young ducks dressed for market, while the frontispiece shows a large eastern Massachusetts duck farm. Dressing DucJcs and Geese — A western dealer says ducks and geese should be scalded in the same tempera- 144 POULTRY FEEDIXG 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, E. I., there is a large goose-fattening establishment. The proprietors jnck 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 fattencrs 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 s-hipped 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 feathers are usually ^v'orth about thirty-five cents per pound, duck feathers MARKETING TUItKEYS AND WATEEFOWL 145 from twcnty-ciglit to tliirty cents. Common hen feathers sell at four to five cents per pound. Said j\rr. Cornell, owner of this establishment: "This year I have fattened aljout lO/JOO geese and about 4000 ducks, not as many as usual, as it has Ijeen a poor season. I feed them on corn meal and beef scraps, fattening them during September, Octoljer 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 poultr}' 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 Ijody. I pay ten cents for picking geese and six cents for ducks." According to another specialist, geese may be finished for market by feeding liberally about ionri 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 emploj-ed with geese whose livers are to 1)e used for the delicacy known as "foie gras" (fat liver). In Farmers' Bulletin No. 182 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 StraslDurg, 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 g 146 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING a da}', commonly with all the groimd maize or wheat flour paste tliey 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 Fig. 34 — KILLING DliPARTJIENT OF AN ENGLISH DUCK FARM nur markets in jars or tins in three distinct forms : Foic gras an nntnrcl. pale dp fo'w ijras (by far tlie most popular), and purer ilc fair ly tlie li\cr jireserveil witliout any dressing. The pates are made of large jiiccis of the liver, cooked and dressed with truflles and other con- MARKETING TURKEYS AND WATERFOWL 147 diments. These pieces are fitted into cans by trim- ming off the edgcSj and are covered with melted goose fat or suet. Many persons find the flavor of tlie goose fat too strong and prefer tlie suet. The trinmiings of the liver in the pales are preserved with truffles, etc., and sold as puree de foie gras. English duel,: 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, also 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 tlie 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 AValch, who markets about 20,000 ducks per year from his farm in Lancashire, England, a part of which is shown in Figure 35. CHAPTER XIII FINISH AND SHAPING THE 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 j'ear after year from birds that are flat in breast and scant in thighs. The illustration, Figure 3(1, "Breast and Thigh Development," sliows a side view of the average fowl Fig. Sr; — BREAST AND THIffPI DEVELOPMENT in the market. The Ijreast flesh ought to go out to the dotted line, then tliere would be twice as much of the white meat, and it would cost no more to bring the Inrd to maturity. The middle figure of the same illustration sliows a cross section of the average market fowl, the dotted sections showing the breast meat. Breed a round, wide-breasted bird and the lireast meat would come out to the dotted lines and double the amount produced. Look carefully to the shape of the breeding stock and select Ijii'ds tliat are Imilt to carry a large amount of liroast and thigh meat. The Ijest marl^et fowls carry the white meat not only on the breast proper as at b in the third figure of the illustration, Init also well back between the legs at a. Much of tlie 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 Wyandottes, Plymouth Eocks and Ehode Island Eeds 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 legs, blue meat and other peculiarities that would make them unpopular in American markets. The excellence Pig. 37 SHAPED 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. Witli the same care and the iise 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, etc.) at the cattle club show, Smithfield, England, is well brought out in Fugure 37. The chief FINISH AXD SFIAPIXG 151 peculiarities of tlie English metliod are; Killing by wringing the neck, not by chopping or sticking; feathers are left on tlie neck for a few inches from the head, also a few feathers on tail and tips of wings ; the breast bone is sometimes lyroken down by pressing it to one side with the thumbs, and the wings arc twisted to the l)ack 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 ancl well finished Fig. 3S — 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 gTades of foreign poultry are fattened and finished for market are fu.lly explained in this work. Sliaping (E. E. Brown) — Although French S3'S- 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 cases 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 anee with the size of tlie fowl, is used. In this board, Figure 40, which is usually one inch thick, are driven eight pegs at equal distances. When the Ijird is killed it is quickly jjlucked, and the head, legs and inner bowel most carefully washed. It is then laid breast down- ward on the Ijoard, 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 — SHAPED POULTRY (La Brosse) 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 desiralile. The liocks have already been tied with the wings through them. When placed in position upon tlie board the rump and crop are supported liy pads of stout paper, or small blocks of wood, covered with clotli, in order to keep the fowl level. A strong linen cloth which is first dipped in milk and is the length oC the Itird's body, is very tightly drawn over the back, and the eight tapes. POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENING 153 Figure 41, provided for the purpose, are tightly attached to the pegs of wood, tlie 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 S3'stem, which is found almost exclusively in the La Bresse district of France, is peculiar to that country, and to it is due the unicjue shape of La Bresse 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 t\vo 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 complete]}'. It is stitclied first from tlie stern up to tlie hocks, and then along the bodj' 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 thirtj'-six hours. When taken out the}' liave 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 sj'stem adopted of shaping, it is a most important point that the bird shall be plucked carefully, and it is customary in some parts to emplo_y the services of what are called "slubbers." If any of the feathers, especially the short quills, are left in the flesh, they will dej)reciate the appearance of the fowl. Fowls are singed immediately after being plucked, and stubbed. Tlie Sussex Sustem — 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 43 and 43, shows a shaping board built in three rows, and capable of holding tliirty to thirty-six birds at one time. For smaller producers it can be built with one row, and tlie cost of material for construction of the large size wordd 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 onlj' twelve pieces of wood, namely: (1) The two upright ends, thirty-six inches l)y 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 better to use smooth boards five-eighths or three-quarters inch thick, and fit the "' ' i firmly together. The operation is as follows : As soon as the birds ucked, which should be done carefully and thor- r, 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. Each 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 tlie second and succeeding birds are placed in the trough tlie 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 London 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 157 Amcr'iran Ilclliods — At the Canadian poultr}' 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. INDEX Page Anatomy ot fowls 45 Animal food 51 Barley for poultry 49 Beets, feeding 63 Bleeding a fowl 113 Block for beheading 119 Bone, amount required 55 as an egg food 56 for chicks and ducklings — 67 fresh green 54 meal for chicks 23 and meat meal 58 scrap 57 value of 55 Board for shaping 152 Boston market, poultry for.. 124 Boxes, marking 121 Breeds for fattening 80. 106 Broilers, care of 33 dressing and marketing 35 feeding — . — 34 finishing for market 31 killing 32 plumping 36 squab 30. 35 starting 35 to finish 35 winter 35 Broiler plant, a 32 Brooders, care of 25 Brooder chicks, feeding 26 Buckwheat for poultry 49 Cabbage for poultry 63 Canada, progress in 104 Canadian fattening 76 methods 108 Capons, dressing — 70 finishing 67, 71 packing 72 profit in 70 ration for 67 Chicago market, poultry for. 125 Chickens, experience with 12 late hatched 67 specially fattened 78 Chicks, feeding 20 grit for 21 treatment for chilled 11 variety for 34 young, feeding 31 Cloth for shaping 162 Clover pasture 62 Condition powders 50 Cooking food 14 Cooling for market 115 Cooping and care 84 Coops for fattening 97, 101, 103, 107 for feeding chicks 10 Page Coops for live shipment 128 for machine fattening 88 Corn for poultry 49 meal for chicks 9 Crates for fattening ..69 Curtice, on feeding chicks... 26 Development of breast and thigh 149 Digestive organs 45 Dressing broilers 35 ducks and geese 14.3 for family trade 128 method of 115 squabs 131 table for 121 western method 122 Droppings an indication 42 Duck farm, English 146 feeding, experiment In 16 raising, expert 14 Ducks, breeding, food for 15 cost per pound 17 cost of raising 16 English, feeding of 147 fattening 140 feeding 139 killing 117 killing and dressing 141 milk for 16 rule for feeding 16 young, ration for 15 Ducklings, meat for 54 Egg food, homemade 50 producer 50 English method, summary' of. 98 Experience with chickens 12 Export, chickens for 129 Fat, feeding 99 hens, to reduce 42, 45 Fattening, American 103 art of 73 artificial 81 breeds for SO by hand 93 by machine, cost of SS Canadian 105 coops 84 cost of 107 crates 69 English 95 English method of 75 English expert 92 experience in 108 French 96 geese 145 German 100 Iowa method 82 machines, English 94 main points In 86 INDEX 159 Page I Page Fattening, requirements for.. Ti) Marketing, export U3 quickly IIU Feeding by hand 92 by machine S'i in yards 109 in molting season 44 science of 48 variety in 9 Felch's meal bread 21 Fisti for poultry 60 .Food, amount required 4S bulky 61 cooking for machine feeding .. for young chicks liquid Foods, Belgian special various Fowls, exercise for feeding in winter rations for stall fed variety for watching condition of Funnel for cramming ... Garbage Geese, dressing squabs 132 turkeys 133 Meat and bone compared 58 and grain compared 53 location of 149 raw 65 results from 52 white 149 Methods, special 82 Milk for chicks 10 Millet for chicks 11, 13 Molting season, feeding in..., Muskrats as poultry food Nuts for poultry fattening 144 livers of 146 German methods 101 Gluten meal 65 Grain and meat compared 54 mixture for chicks 27 Grains for fowls 37 44 64 64 97 for poultry 49 in fattening 101 Oatmeal for chicks 22 Overfeeding 42. 'lo Owls' Nest farm 30 Packing and shipping 126 expert 123 Picking, details of 113 turkeys 136 Pinfeathering 114 Pomace 66 Poultry, dry picked 122 English, weight of 77 facts 48 family 128 fancy, French 74 for choice trade Ill quality in 74 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 38 balanced for chicks I'O food for poultry 51 Rice for poultry 64 Grit for chicks 11. 21!Rye and clover 62 Hens on Maine college farm. 43 Scalding 116 Horseflesh 58 method of 121 Hunter, A. F. , on chicken | poultry 126 feeding 19 Scraps in fattening 100 Tcing for shipment 126 Killing bag 117 ducks 117 English method of 151 expert 113 French method 118 knife for 116 method of 105 methods of compared Ill squabs 131 Knife for killing 116 guide for 117 Shelter for chicks Layers, selecting 42 Shipment, icing for table 65 Screenings 65 Seed mixture for chicks 27 Selection of layers 42 Shaped fowls, French 151 Shaping, American method.. 157 board, Canadian 156 board, French 151 cloth 152 English method 154 La Bresse method 153 24 126 Live poultry, shipping 127 Shippjing box, Canadian 129 Machine feeding 83' in coops 127 Machines, increased use of ... 81 Shrinkage, amount of 127 Market, preparing for 120 Skimmilk 61 Marketing broilers 35l feeding ,...102 100 INDEX Page Small broiiers, growinff 28 Sour food 66 Special food crop 63 Squabs, marketing 130 Sulphur in fattening 100 Table for dressing 121 Tallow for fattening W Tankage, ground 65 Trotighs, English sha-ping 154 Turkeys, Christmas 135 dressing 115, 134 English 138 fattening 133 Page Turkeys, feeding young 17 killing 133 marketing 133 shipping 137 Thanksgiving 138 Turtle as a poultry food 60 "Vegetables for chicks 12 Wheat for poultry 49 Whey cream 60 Winter chicks, f'^rrting 27 Wringing the neck 118 Yards, feeding in 109