FINISHING POULTRY FOR THE TABLE 



307 



year, is so great that this line has proved a most precarious one. 

 Some of the most successful men in it, knowing the risks to which 

 they were continually exposed, have systematically urged the growers 

 from whom they were buying to fatten their own geese, and growers 

 are more and more following this advice, especially when located 

 near good markets. 



Fowls, ducks, and (more rarely) turkeys are sometimes fed in 

 considerable numbers by buyers in touch with large live-poultry 

 markets, who take advantage of opportunities to buy cheap and 

 increase the weight of the birds while holding them for a rise. 

 Operations of this kind are rather irregular, and, like most specu- 

 lative transactions, are often unprofitable. 



Special finishing methods. There are two special fattening proc- 

 esses, crate feeding and cramming. Occasion for special methods 

 comes in part from the neglect or failure of ordinary methods and 

 in part from the demand for poultry fatted more than is possible 

 by ordinary methods. Both processes date from early times and 

 have long been used in Europe. Several efforts to introduce them 

 into America have met with very limited and temporary success. 

 Whatever may be the case in countries where they have been long 

 established, in America the exploitation of such methods turns 

 the attention of the producer to the consideration of the advan- 

 tage of ordinary methods of fattening, and when these are properly 

 used, there is less material for and less need of special fattening. 

 Again, while these special methods may sometimes give results 

 not to be obtained by ordinary methods, they do not do so regularly. 

 The truest appreciation of their utility is reached by treating them, 

 not as of proved intrinsic worth and as necessary parts of any 

 good general system of poultry culture, but as useful (like all other 

 methods) in proportion to their adaptation to conditions existing 

 at any time and place. 



Crate feeding. The process of crate feeding carries the detail of 

 finishing by restriction of exercise and by forced feeding farther 

 than is practicable by ordinary methods, with the birds penned on 

 a floor. The food used is finely ground grains mixed to about the 

 consistency of batter and fed in troughs. The use of such food 

 makes it necessary to keep the birds in small groups, with the 

 food outside of their compartment, and also to keep them on such 



