FATTENING AND FINISHING POULTRY FOR THE TABLE 



87 



table quality. As farmers generally are indifferent to 

 the possibilities of considerably increasing their returns 

 from the cockerels in this way, the practice of special 

 fattening these chickens has grown up among the poultry 

 packers, and many of them find it very profitable. At 

 the same time the buyers and jobbers in poultry mostly 

 take the position that this work could be done economi- 

 cally and much more satisfactorily by the growers on the 

 farms. They would rather have the grower send them 

 finished products; but if growers will not do this, then 

 the large buyers will engage in fattening as long as 

 the numbers of unfinished 

 chickens they receive make it 

 worth while to do so. 



Where stock of this class 

 has been so well fed that it 

 is in good flesh, perhaps a 

 little fat, and quite soft- 

 meated, the best method is to 

 put the birds in yards and 

 feed liberally of a good grow- 

 ing ration, including a gener- 

 ous supply of green feed, and 

 all the milk they will drink, 

 keeping them on this diet for 

 a week or two, according to 

 their condition. Then put 

 them in a pen that can be 

 made so dark that they will 

 not move about, and let the 

 light into this pen only long 

 enough to allow them to fill 

 up with feed three times a 

 day. A good ration at this 

 time is: Two feeds a day of 

 clean, sound cracked corn. 



one feed a day of a mash of 2 parts of corn meal and 1 part 

 of wheat bran, with 10 per cent of meat scrap added. This 

 feeding can be continued as long as the chickens eat 

 well, or until they are as fat as desired. Usually chickens 

 will be as fat as most people want them in a week to 

 ten days, though many chickens that are rugged at the 

 beginning of this course of treatment will stand high 

 feeding in the dark for two weeks or more. 



The great advantage of feeding this way is that the 

 preliminary period of feeding makes the change from an 

 ordinary to a heavy ration so easy that the birds adjust 

 themselves to it without going off their feed, and when 

 they are put on the heavy fattening diet they have be- 

 come just lazy enough to take kindly to being kept in 

 the dark after eating. In this method of fattening the 

 risk of the birds going off their feed before they have 

 fattened is reduced to the minimum. In it, however, and 

 in all fattening, it must be understood that unthrifty birds 

 with poor digestion will not fatten, and it is a waste of 

 time and feed to try to make them do so. Any little gains 

 that they make cost more than they are worth. 



Fattening Large Roasters and Capons 



Large roasters are principally capons. Where win- 

 ter chickens are grown for. the table, the most of the 

 pullets are sold for roasting as soon as they begin to 

 lay, and some growers of Asiatics have young males re- 

 main soft long enough to be sold for large roasters; but 

 in the main, cockerels that are to be kept for large roast- 

 ers are caponized. As the large roaster is carried until 

 full grown before fattening for market, the method of 

 feeding is not much different from that used for growing 

 pullets for laying and stock birds. The market chickens 



are usually crowded a little more in the yards and houses, 

 and fed with less attention to exercise. The less exer- 

 cise they take the more economically they are grown 

 provided only that they take enough to ward off indi- 

 gestion. 



The famous "so'uth shore" soft roasters of Massa- 

 chusetts are mostly fed from the time they leave the 

 brooders until they are ready for market on the simple 

 ration of cracked corn, meat scrap, green feed, and water, 

 as mentioned on page 62. This is their fattening as well 

 as their growing ration. The principle upon which they 



FATTENING CRATE USED 

 THE DOMINION 



AND RECOMMENDED BY THE POULTRY DIVISION OF 

 OF CANADA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



are fed and handled is to give a simple, substantial grow- 

 ing ration one that reduces the labor in feeding to the 

 minimum and will produce as much fat as the bird will 

 carry while growing, with an increased production of fat 

 as soon as growth stops. The bird then -is watched 

 closely, and when the fattening has reached a stage 

 which experts in handling this class of poultry judge not 

 by the amount of fat, but by the appearance of the skin, 

 it is marketed. The chickens grown in this way are 

 quite different in appearance from those that put on all 

 their fat in a short time before being killed. The fat is 

 much more evenly distributed, and by killing when the 

 skin shows its best texture and color the bird goes to 

 the table when the proportion of fat to lean in the meat 

 is most appetizing. The grower of this class of poultry 

 characterizes the proper condition for killing as being 

 "ripe." He holds that a chicken, like fruit, comes to a 

 stage 'when it is at its best, and after that deteriorates. 

 The teim "ripe" as used by growers of poultry should 

 not be confounded with the same term as used to ex- 

 press the condition of meat held after slaughter until just 

 before the tissues begin to break down. 



Fattening Old Fowls 



It is doubtful whether it pays to go any farther in 

 efforts to fatten old hens and roosters than can be done 

 in a very short period of heavy feeding, with birds that 

 are in good condition at the beginning of it. In flocks 

 that are culled only at long intervals there are likely to 

 be many old birds in run-down condition and not having 

 good digestion, that are yet not so far gone but that 

 proper care and feeding will, in time, make good table 

 poultry of them. The time required for this, however, 



