handling and efforts to secure a standardized and good quality product for 

 a mass market. In the larger plants more equipment has been discarded in 

 recent years because of obsolescence than wear. In a few cases, pieces of 

 equipment or even whole new processing lines, became obsolete before 

 they were installed. 



However, there is still much old equipment in use particularly in small 

 plants without overhead lines, although some of the larger plants are still 

 getting satisfactory service out of scalders and pickers that have been in 

 use for many years. The newer machines are larger, more versatile in the 

 jobs they can perform, and more automatic in operation. There undoubtedly 

 is a close correlation between plant size and average age of the equipment. 



Overhead Lines 



Table 17 shows the relationship between size of plant as judged by annual 

 volume and the size and type of various pieces of equipment. Naturally 

 the line has to be long enough to accommodate the equipment used. The 

 length of the dressing line for the large plants ranged from 290 feet to 

 .550 feet. For the medium-sized plants the range was 100 feet to 250 feet. 

 One exceptional plant in this group had a line 400 feet long. This plant 

 New \ork-dressecl in the morning and eviscerated in the afternoon. All of 

 the large plants for which data were available indicated a 6-9 inch shackle 

 spacing on dressing lines. For medium-sized plants the average was about 

 12 inches. Hence, this factor (related to handling more fowl) may par- 

 tially explain why many dressing lines in medium-sized plants are longer 

 in relation to volume than for large plants. 



Feeding 



At the time the survey was made the practice of feeding poultry was quite 

 general throughout the sample area. The only plants not feeding at all 

 were those handling one-pound birds. Specific space for a feeding station 

 was not provided at some of the small plants, but birds could be fed in 

 crates if necessary. Some reasons given for feeding were: to put the final 

 bloom on the bird; to recover shrinkage; and to even out plant operations. 

 In general, time on feed was of short duration. Feeding of fowl was most 

 likely to be an overnight holding proposition due to the limited weight 

 gains possible. 



Scalding 



Scalding is an operation that requires particular temperatures for definite 

 lengths of time, depending on class and condition of birds. In general, scald 

 temperatures used on fowl run about two degrees higher than for broilers. 

 Most small plants were likely to use higher scald temperatures than medium- 

 sized or large plants. Scalders in plants without overhead lines are loaded 

 and unloaded by hand. Dunking and timing are done mechanicallv or 

 manually. In plants with overhead lines, length of scalders is largely deter- 

 mined by the speed of the line. Thus, since the larger plants have a faster- 

 moving line, they need a relatively longer scalder to produce the desired 

 results. Scalders in large plants ranged from 30 to 55 feet in length and 

 in the medium-sized plants from 12 to 30 feet. 



37 



