FATTENING AND FINISHING POULTRY FOR THE TABLE 



89 



The chickens on a commercial fattening plant come from 

 here, there, and everywhere, and many of them have been 

 so long in transit, or held under unfavorable conditions 

 and without proper feed and care by country buyers, that 

 they are in poorer flesh than when they left the farm, and 

 perhaps are out of condition otherwise. It is a common 

 practice to feed poultry in their shipping coops while be- 

 ing held in small numbers and in transit, the grain being 

 put on the bottom of the coop which is foul with their 

 droppings. Not only is hard grain fed in this way, but 

 also sloppy mixtures of ground feeds. A large proportion 

 of chickens subjected to such treatment suffer the usual 

 consequences of eating polluted feed, while the crowding 

 and exposure cause roupy conditions. These troubles the 

 grower can entirely avoid. The poultry grower ought 

 also to consider that a considerable part of the losses 

 which result from these things conies back on him. It 

 is by no means all passed on to the consumer. The buyer 

 (the middleman) protects himself by keeping his original 

 cost as low as possible. 



Ration Xo. 43 An Ontario Agricultural College Ration 



I Barley meal 2 parts, corn meal or chop 2 parts, shorts 

 or middlings 2 parts, finely ground oats 1 part, 

 animal meal 1 part. This is mixed with about one 

 and a half times its weight of skim millt and fed 

 three times a day. The birds are given water 

 twice a day. 



II Corn meal 2 parts, ground buckwheat 2 parts, pearl 

 oat dust 1 part. 



Ill Corn meal 4 parts, ground buckwheat 2 parts, pearl 

 oat dust 2 parts. 



II and III are substantially the same ration modified in 

 II for hot weather and in III for colder weather. Pearl 

 oat dust alone is recommended as a good ration when the 

 cost is reasonable It is interesting to note that the aver- 

 age amount of feed to make a pound of gain in a series of 

 crate-fattening experiments at this institution was 3.3 

 pounds almost exactly the same as the average for a poun:l 

 of growth as reported from the same place in the preced- 

 ing chapter. 



The Cramming Method of Fattening 

 In England and on the Continent of Europe where 

 there is some demand for excessively fat poultry, the 

 practice obtains to some extent of cramming the birds by 

 forcing feed into the crop in larger quantities than the 

 bird would voluntarily take it. Efforts to introduce this 

 practice into America have never met with much encour- 

 agement. Two things are against it here the cost of 

 labor, and the limited demand for poultry with more fat 

 than can be put on it by ordinary methods or by crate 

 feeding. The method is shown in an accompanying illus- 

 tration. The successful practice of it requires a con- 

 siderable measure of judgment in the selection of birds 



for the process and of skill in forcing into the crop w'th- 

 out particular distress to the biid all the feed that its 

 system can stand. By this process birds can be made 

 enormously fat. The feed used is the same in substance 



A CRAMMING MACHINE FOR SPECIAL. FATTENING 

 FOWLS 



In cramming or force-feeding, the machine hopper is 

 filled with a gruel-like mixture of finely ground grain 

 and milk or water, and by pressure upon the pedal the 

 feed is forced into the crop. In using the machine, 

 operator always keeps one hand on the fowl's crop to 

 gauge the quantity that can safely be fed. 



as in crate feeding, but must have the milled stuffs very 

 finely ground and must be thin enough to go through 

 the tube and nozzle by which it passes from the feed 

 reservoir in the cramming machine into the crop of the 

 bird, without clogging. 



