2 BULLETIX 657, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
found that soft meated live chickens hi transit lose flesh rapidly and 
that wet picking, scalding, or chilling birds in water, the methods 
usual in farm preparation, waste substance and lessen the flavor and 
the keeping quality of the birds. For these reasons it is rarely pro- 
fitable for a farmer to coop fatten, or finish chickens at home and 
ship them alive or as farm dressed poultry for distant markets. As 
a result, more and more young chickens are being collected at central 
feeding stations (fig. 1, PL I), there to be fleshed quickly for market, 
and slaughtered, dressed, chilled, and shipped without intervening 
loss of flesh or flavor. The fleshing stations vary in size from those 
with a capacity of 30,000 to those holding 1,000 head, depending upon 
the size of the packing house attached. It is believed that final coop 
finishing for market under certain conditions will offer returns as 
a centralized cooperative activity for a group of farmers producing 
an important aggregate of chickens each season. 
COMPOSITION OF RATIONS USED. 
It is possible to produce high quality flesh for food purposes very 
rapidly and at comparatively small expense by feeding chickens a 
suitable ration under appropriate conditions. Various rations based 
upon grain mixtures wet with water or buttermilk have been used 
by commercial feeders. The grains most commonly used are mix- 
tures of corn and wheat. To these are added oats and occasionally 
barley. One of the rations to be discussed in this bulletin includes 
distillers' grains, which have not been used to any extent in chicken 
fleshing. Rations composed of corn meal and buttermilk, and of 
corn meal and water have been fed simultaneously with the corn 
meal, distillers' grains, and buttermilk. The comparative efficiency 
of the three rations is given in the foUowing pages. 
Composition of Rations. 
Ration A: Pounds. 
Xo. 3 whole corn, ground to a fine meal 100 
Water 127 
Ration B : 
No. 3 whole corn, ground to a fine meal 100 
Fresh buttermilk 150 
Ration C : 
No. 3 whole corn, ground to a fine meal 75 
Dried distillers' grains (corn) 25 
Fresh buttermilk ! 150 
When dried buttermilk is used 10 pounds of the powder should be 
added to 90 pounds of water. Ration C is thicker hi consistency 
than the ration commonly fed. It should not be thinned, as is the 
tendency among feeders using it for the first time. 
A chemical analysis of these feeds tuffs and of the compounded 
rations showed the compositions indicated in Table 1. These 
results are the mean analyses of six lots of corn meal and two lots 
