140 MY POULTRY DAY BY DAY 
But as regards feeding up and fattening one’s own surplus fowls 
there need be no difficulty about that. As a rule the “fatters ” 
of Sussex do not breed or rear their poultry. They buy young and 
promising birds from “ higglers ’—men who scour the countryside, 
calling at all farms and cottages for young fowls that form the raw 
material for the fatters. I have never heard of anyone succeed- 
ing as a fatter of fowls who was not born and bred to the business. 
The weights of some fatted fowls run into big figures. Exhibited 
in couples such birds as Dorkings, Langshans and Buff Orpingtons 
will weigh over 20 Ib., the cockerels as a rule weighing a pound or 
two more than the pullets. In normal times these fatted hens will 
fetch 20s. a pair. 
A fatted fowl is, of course, worth much more per pound than a 
bird that has not undergone the process, because the same amount 
of bone and waste matter attaches to similar birds. In order to 
illustrate my meaning I give the results of an experiment. A 
specialist bought six birds as nearly as possible of the same weight. 
Three of these were immediately killed and weighed. The other 
three were fed up for thirty-six days. The fowls that were killed 
at once weighed 8} Ib. with feathers off. The fattened birds 
weighed 16} lb. The edible portion of the first lot weighed 2 Ib. 
6 oz. each, while the eating portion of the fat birds weighed 7 lb. 
6 oz. There was thus a clear gain of 5 lb. of edible matter ; or 
in other words the fatted birds were worth exactly three times as 
much as the lean birds. 
New markets have grown up in this country for very young 
chickens called petits poussins, or milk chickens, and for this 
purpose young Leghorn cockerels become at once a paying pro- 
position. Asa rule these petits poussins are wanted to weigh from 
12 oz. to 14 oz. each, and the young cockerel is just discernible 
when he arrives at this weight. Carefully plucked these six-week- 
old birds will fetch about Is. 6d. each. 
Oup StyLE Fattinet 
To show that chicken-fatting differs very little now in the 
