CHAPTER VIII. 
PREPARING FOR MARKET. 
FATTENING POULTRY. 
No fowl over two years old should be kept in the 
poultry-yard except for some special reason. An extra 
good mother or a finely feathered bird that is desirable 
as a breeder may be preserved until ten years old with 
advantage, or at least so long as she is serviceable. But 
ordinary hens and cocks should be fattened at the end 
of the second year for market. When there is a room 
or shed that can be closed, the fowls may be confined 
there. The floor should be covered with two or three 
inches of fine sawdust, dry earth, sifted coal-ashes, or 
clean sand. The food should be given four times a 
day, and clean water be always before the fowls. A 
dozen or more fowls may be put at once in each apart- 
ment. One of the best foods for rapid fattening, for 
producing well-flavored flesh and rich fat, is buckwheat 
meal, mixed with sweet skimmed milk, into a thick 
mush. A teaspoonful of salt should be stirred in the 
food for a dozen fowls. ‘Two weeks’ feeding is sufficient 
to fatten the fowls, when they should be shipped for 
sile without delay and other lots put up for feeding. If 
the fattening-coop is kept dark and cool, as it should 
be, the fowls will fatten all the quicker for it. 
Gm 
WHEN TO MARKET. 
Poultry which it is not intended to winter should be 
fattened before really severe weather comes on; other- 
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