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COMMERCIAL POULTRY RAISING 



breakage. It is not only a loss to itself, but it contaminates 

 everything around it. 



Trade Terms. — In the trade, breakage is designated by various 

 names, some of which are descriptive, if not picturesque. Cracked 

 eggs are termed checks. When the shells are pushed in without 

 rupturing the inner membrane, they are called dents. If the 

 eggs are partly open, or if they have lost a portion of their con- 

 tents, they are known as leakers. When the eggs are com- 

 pletely broken — among the missing, as it were — they are spoken 

 of as mashers. 



Leakers and mashers not only produce smeared eggs, which 



{Courtesy Missouri Experiment Station) 



Fig. 273. — Typical forms of breakage which usually result from careless hand- 

 ling or packing. 



are heavily discounted as dirties, but they account for a great 

 many moldy eggs, also rots and spots. The checks and dents 

 constitute a heavy loss because they do not keep in storage. It 

 is estimated that thirteen million dollars' worth of eggs spoil in 

 storage each year because of cracks, some of which are scarcely 

 visible to the naked eye. 



Mechanical Injury. — The responsibility for mechanical injury 

 — breakage — is the bugbear of the egg trade. It has been the 

 cause of so many claims, controversies and law suits between 

 shippers, receivers and railroads that many of the latter have 

 wanted to give up handling case eggs altogether. Even now 



