16 BULLETIN 1385, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
to stay while the train is in motion. No aisle runs lengthwise of 
the car, and it is impossible for the attendant to feed the poultry 
except when the train is at a standstill; and, as the cars are not 
equipped (fig. 10) with water tanks, no water can be given except 
when the train is at a station. The capacity of the cars when di- 
vided into cross sections is approximately the same as it would be 
if they were divided longitudinally. The coops in which the poul- 
try is confined within this type of car are often made entirely of 
metal, with feeding troughs hung on the front of the coop. Each 
car holds 3,500 chickens, weighing in the aggregate approximately 
8,000 pounds. 
Under these conditions, together with the feeds used, consisting 
mainly of corn, wheat, barley, and water, the shrinkage of poultry 
Fig. 10.— Live-poultry car used between Yugoslavia and Italy. Hungarian live- 
poultry car in rear 
in transit is large. The estimated shrinkage from southern Yugo- 
slavia to Milan, Italy, a period of something like seven days in 
transit, averages as high as 15 per cent of the live weight. 
DRESSING OF POULTRY 
In the United States the customary way of dressing poultry for 
market is to bleed it, remove the feathers, and cool it by artificial 
refrigeration or by ice, pack it without removing the entrails, and 
ship it to market or cold storage in refrigerator cars. 
In Europe the poultry is killed, picked, and entrails drawn im- 
mediately. It is packed in baskets or boxes, usually with straw, 
after cooling during only one afternoon or night at ordinary tem- 
peratures. The drawing of the poultry helps to cool the carcass 
by removing the heat in the entrails. Of course, this removing of 
the entrails contaminates the abdominal cavity with intestinal con- 
