CHAPTER VIII. 



PREPARING FOR MARKET. 



FATTENING POULTRY. 



No fowl over two years old should be kept in the 

 poultry -yard except for some special reason. An extra 

 good mother or a finely feathered bird that is desirable 

 as a breeder may be preserved until ten years old with 

 advantage, or at least so long as she is serviceable. But 

 ordinary hens and cocks should be fattened at the end 

 of the second year for market. When there is a room 

 < r shed that can be closed, the fowls may be confined 

 f nere. The floor should be covered with two or three 

 inches of fine sawdust, dry earth, sifted coal-ashes, or 

 clean sand. The food should be given four times a 

 day, and clean water be always before the fowls. A 



)zen or more fowls may be put at once in each apart- 

 . ient. One of the best foods for rapid fattening, for 

 I reducing well-flavored flesh and rich fat, is buckwheat 

 meal, mixed with sweet skimmed milk, into a thick 

 mush. A teaspoonful of salt should be stirred in the 

 food for a dozen fowls. Two weeks' feeding is sufficient 

 to fatten the fowls, when they should be shipped for 

 sale without delay and other lots put up for feeding. If 

 the fattening-coop is kept dark and cool, as it should 

 be, the fowls will fatten all the quicker for it. 



WHEN TO MARKET. 



Poultry which it is not intended to winter should be 

 fattened before really severe weather comes on; other- 

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