POULTRY FOR PROFIT 137 



ration, they can usually be counted on to pay for 

 their raising and something more. 



The ration fed to the cockerels intended for mar- 

 ket may contain a good deal more soft food than that 

 of the pullets. A moist mash twice a day from the 

 first month on, with cracked corn at noon, will keep 

 them growing and bring them to marketable age at 

 eight or nine weeks in the case of the heavy breeds, 

 and about twelve weeks for light breeds. 



Notwithstanding the fact that market quotations 

 in early spring are higher for broilers than for fry- 

 ers, my experience is that it is hard to get a good 

 price for birds under two pounds weight, and from 

 two to three pounds is really the most profitable 

 weight to sell them. Outside of hotels and restau- 

 rants, few people care for a bird that weighs less 

 than two pounds, and the hotel and restaurant trade 

 is only for the poultrymen who make a specialty of 

 broilers and can agree to deliver a certain number 

 every week. Two-pound birds in early spring will 

 bring from thirty to thirty-five cents a pound, live 

 weight, perhaps a little more at times, and this is the 

 most profitable time to sell them. Additional weight 

 that might be added by holding them would not make 

 up for the probable drop in price, to say nothing of 

 the feed consumed. 



Fattening Cockerels 



When the young cockerels have nearly reached the 

 desired weight they are much improved by being 

 placed in crates which hold six or seven birds each. 



Bulletin 10 of Purdue University Experiment Sta- 

 tion gives these directions for crate fattening: 



"A crate should be built in as cool and quiet a spot 

 as possible, and divided into compartments capable 

 of holding six or seven fowls. These divisions can be 



