FIRST LESSONS IN POULTRY KEEPING. 149 



LESSON XIX. 



The Fattening of Poultry. 



WHAT is fat? My dictionary describes it, and tells me that it is a part of animal 

 tissue, and is also found in plants. From advocates of " scientific" feeding, more 

 may be learned about it. They discuss it as a food element and as a body con- 

 stituent, and though we may not follow them through all their ideas, let us give 

 them credit for having made the people of their generation more familiar with the qualities of 

 food and the requirements of the animal organism. 



Fat in the organism is an extremely concentrated reserve supply of nourishment stored for 

 emergencies, and sometimes, also, by its disposition under the skin, made to serve as a protec- 

 tion from cold. Indeed, when stored in large quantities the bulk of it is usually deposited next 

 the skin, though a good deal is distributed through the muscular tissues, and sometimes large 

 quantities accumulate about the internal organs. Nature's problem in the disposition of the fat 

 on a person, animal, or fowl is very like that of a man who has to find place for a store of 

 materials in a workshop in which practically all the available room is required for the work 

 carried on and materials actually being used. But a small quantity of fat can be stored in the 

 body without detriment to it, or interference with its functions. "Wherever placed, it is a dead 

 weight to be carried more or less of a burden. An excessive accumulation of fat between 

 the muscular tissues and about the joints and the juncture of sinews with the bones impedes 

 the action of the limbs. Large deposits of fat about the internal organs seriously interferes 

 with their functions. Again, the sense of fullness occasioned by such a never failing reserve 

 is apt to dull the appetite, and the tendency to inactivity combines with this to weaken the 

 digestive organs and so gradually destroy the vitality and vigor of the organism. 



From the point of view of the poultry breeder and egg farmer, fat, in excess of the small 

 reserve necessary to offset irregularities in feeding, production, and temperature, is a bad thing. 



From the point of view of the poultryman about to sell, and of buyers of table poultry, fat 

 and a great deal of it is desirable. 



The fowl in good breeding or laying condition is not, as a rule, in good table condition. 

 The chicken, as it runs on the farm or in the yard, lacks the plumpness and smoothness of a 

 fatted chicken. The lean fowl or chicken, though tender in flesh, is dry mealed and not espe- 

 cially appetizing. When hard meated it is quite undesirable. So for table purposes poultry 

 should be somewhat fat. How fat, is a question for individual tastes, or market demands, to 

 determine. 



In some foreign countries, notably in France and Belgium, there is some market demand for 

 excessively fat fowls, and the process of fattening fowls for this demand is something of an art, 

 requiring considerable skill, good judgment, and first of all, fowls constitutionally well adapted 

 to it. In England, the taste for fat poultry is less pronounced, and a less degree of fattening 

 suffices, but still a good deal of attention is given the art of fattening. In this country very 

 fat fowls are not wanted to any marked extent. In this respect we are behind or not, accord- 



