33 POULTRY FEEDING AND FATTENIITG 



taken away, leaving them a little hungry. Then the 

 next feeding time they will be looking for more. They 

 would not stand this high feeding i^rocess very long at 

 a time, but when they are to go to market in two or 

 three weeks, they can be quickest finished off in this 

 manner. Chickens which are to be kept a longer time 

 nmst be fed less, kept hungry all the time, so that they 

 are ready to fly out of the pen when the man comes 

 around with the feed. They must he kept scratching. 

 The best we can do, we lose an average of three or four 

 a day in winter. 



''When the chickens are ^^'antcd for market they are 

 carried in baskets to the killing house, where they are 

 dispatched by stabljing the back of their mouth with a 

 lancet. The head is not removed. They are not fed 

 for twenty-four hours before killing and the entrails 

 are not removed. They are dry picked and packed in 

 ])airs in pasteboard boxes made to fit. There is an ice 

 liox for cooling the dressed poultry in summer." 



Intensive farming in or near a city, where the 

 market is, can bo carried on in no better way than in the 

 raising of broilers. The following account of a city 

 broiler plant is by W. M. Hayes, Hampden county, 

 Mass.: "Mj lot is fifty by 150 feet, with a two-tene- 

 ment house and stable that accommodates nine Jiorses 

 and sheds to cover wagons, sleighs, etc. The brooder 

 (juarters, as shown in Figure 3, occupy the second floor 

 of the wagon shed, fourteen l^y fifty-two feet. The only 

 lieat obtained is from the brooder stoves. 



"The brooders are arranged in a series, side by side, 

 each two and one-half by four feet and without hovers. 

 They are entirely homemade affairs and I consider tliera 

 as practical as any without a regulator. One of the 

 incubators holds 3G0 to 400 hens' eggs, the other 110 

 eggs. My first hatch was December 3. From then 

 until suanmer I hatched 1279 chicks and raised as 



