CHAPTER XXIII. 
BROILERS, ROASTERS, AND CAPONS. 
Tue production of poultry for meat offers to the small poul- 
tryman, the intensive poultry keeper, and the farmer alike a 
possible source of considerable revenue at slight expense. It 
offers exceptional opportunities on the farm, for there range is 
usually abundant and cheap, and the raising of broilers, and 
especially roasters, can be well combined with the average farm 
routine. Again, for the production of market eggs many pullets 
are hatched each year. There will always be surplus cockerels, 
which if properly handled and marketed will yield a good revenue. 
There is a steady demand for first-class prime dressed and live 
poultry at exceedingly attractive prices, the demand being more 
constant than with other types of meat. The various kinds of 
dressed poultry have their seasons and corresponding fluctuations 
in price. It becomes the problem of the poultryman, if he counts 
on any income from this source, to study seasons and markets 
and adjust his stock to meet these requirements. 
Types of Market Poultry—Commercially, market poultry may 
be divided into the following classifications, which are recognized 
by all commission houses, retail jobbers, and the trade. Prices 
are quoted regularly on the basis of this classification: Fowls, 
broilers, fryers, roasters, capons. 
Fowls.—In the markets the term ‘“ fowl”? means all female 
birds one year old or over (Fig. 174). The great majority of these 
are usually sold in the summer and fall when they have finished 
their second or third year of laying, and are then disposed of to 
make room for incoming pullets. Such fowls bring the lowest 
price in the market, with the one exception of roosters, or old 
male birds, for which there is little demand, owing to inferior 
quality. A large number of fowls are sold alive, and shipped by 
carloads to heavy consuming centres. In the East a leading 
factor in the control of the live-poultry market is the heavy de- 
mand during the Jewish holidays which come in the fall of the 
year. Variation in the selling price of fowls throughout the year 
is very slight,—less, in fact, than of any other market type. 
Plump, moderately fat fowls are in the greatest demand, thin 
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