CHAPTER VIII. 
KILLING AND COOLING. 
Kill the Squabs in the Morning When Their Crops Are Empty—Not 
Necessary to Use a Knife, Their Necks May Be Tweaked—Drive 
the Animal Heat Out of Their Bodies by Hanging Them from Nails 
—The Ideal Squab When Shipped Has an Empty Crop, Its Feet 
Have Been Washed Clean, and No Blood Shows—Sorting Squabs 
So as to Get the Highest Price from the Dealer. 
The time to kill the squabs is in the morning, when the crops are empty.’ 
In killing them it is not necessary to use a knife. Hold each squab in 
the manner shown in the illustration and break the neck with a sudden 
pull and push. Do not pull too hard or you will sever the neck from the 
body. Some of our customers have hard work to get this knack of tweak- 
ing the necks and prefer to wring the necks, or to use a knife. To wring 
the neck, hold the squab by the head in the right hand and throw the 
_ body around in a complete circle, this act twisting and breaking the neck. 
After the squabs are killed they must be cooled. In other words the 
anima] heat must be driven out of their bodies. Provide a piece of board 
or studding eight or ten feet long and every four inches along this stud- 
ding drive a couple of nine-penny wire finish nails close together, but not 
so close that you cannot squeeze in the legs of the squabs. A finish wire 
nail has no large head like an ordinary wire nail. Suspend the studding 
from the ceiling by means of wire adjusted at both ends of the studding. 
This method of hanging it up is to prevent rats and cats from climbing 
up onto the studding and walking along it and eating the squabs. Place 
the feet of the squabs between the wire nails and let them hang down- 
wards over night. In the morning the heat will be all out of their bodies 
and you can pack and ship them. If you are delivering plucked squabs 
to market, you do not need such an arrangement, but will throw the 
bodies into a tub of ice water (or cold spring water) after you have 
niucked them. 
Ignorance of how to cool the killed squabs properly has discouraged 
many a squab raiser. If you throw the squabs in a pile on the floor 
after you have tweaked their necks, you will have a fermenting mass 
and the following morning, when you are ready to ship, many of the 
bodies will be dark-colored at the place of contact with the floor, or with 
other squabs, and decay wili start from such discolored places. Hang 
the bodies from the studding, as we have described, ‘and you will coo} 
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