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POULTRY CULTURE 



preparation than at other times, or than other farm poultry get, but 

 even of these, enormous quantities of unfinished birds are put on 

 the market. Of birds, particularly chickens, grown under intensive 

 conditions, the good specimens are usually much better finished 

 than those from the farms ; the poorer ones are much inferior, 

 not only thin but unthrifty or unhealthy looking. As a rule, only 

 those poultry keepers producing especially for the table (and by no 

 means all of these) make any well-directed efforts to put poultry on 

 the market in first-class shape. Among all classes of poultry keep- 

 ers, however, conditions in this respect are gradually improving. 



What has been said so far applies to young poultry. Much of 

 the old poultry marketed is overfat, perhaps best described as acci- 

 dentally and improperly fattened. A great deal of it is poultry that 

 should have been marketed weeks, months, or even years before, 

 and would have been if the owners had systematically disposed of 

 their birds as they became unprofitable. Such poultry, though fat, 

 is not finished, in the proper sense of the term. The fat on it is 

 usually not well distributed, detracts from rather than adds to the 

 appearance, and is distinctly inferior in flavor to the fat on a freshly 

 finished bird. 



Simple methods of fattening. Ordinary fattening is accom- 

 plished by modifications of ordinary feeding conditions and meth- 

 ods. As already stated, the mere change of the conditions of 

 feeding by stopping exercise may result in a quite rapid accumula- 

 tion of fat, though no change is made in the ration. Increase of 

 the proportion of fattening foods in the ration, the birds still taking 

 exercise, also tends to make fat. Increase of fattening foods with 

 restriction on exercise usually causes very rapid fattening, the rate 

 and amount of fattening being governed very largely by the close- 

 ness of confinement and the proportion of fat-producing elements in 

 the food, and limited by the capacity of the bird to continue to digest 

 food and to accumulate fat under conditions tending to exhaust 

 vital powers. Finishing in this way is a simple process and (if the 

 birds have been properly grown up to the finishing stage) so effec- 

 tive that there is no excuse for putting thrifty young poultry of any 

 kind on the market in poor condition. All that is necessary is that 

 birds to be marketed should be separated from the others a few 

 weeks before (instead of at) the time when they are to be disposed 



