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FOOD VALUE AND USES OF POULTRY. 17 
so old it will be brittle, and in an old bird, tough and hard to bend 
or break. Unfortunately there are sometimes tricky dealers who 
break the end of the breastbone before showing the bird, -and thus 
- render the test worthless. If the feet are left on the carcass, they 
furnish a mark of age. In a young bird they are soft and smooth, 
becoming hard and rough as the bird grows older. The claws are 
short and sharp in a young bird, growing longer and blunter with 
age and use. Spurs generally occur on male chickens. On. male 
broilers and tender roasting chickens they are small; on older, higher- 
flavored ones they are prominent but flexible; on cocks they are long 
and attached to the bones of the legs; on capons they seldom develop 
until the second year of age. 
Turkeys up to a year old are said to have black feet, which grow 
pink up to three years old and then gradually turn gray and dull. 
The age of pigeons can sometimes be told by the color of the 
breast, which becomes more and more purplish as the bird grows 
older. Red feet are also said to be a sign of age in a pigeon. 
In ducks and geese the flexibility of the windpipe is a mark of 
youth. It can be easily squeezed and moved when the bird is young, 
but later grows rigid and fixed. 
Turkeys, ducks, and geese are often marketed with the wing feathers 
on, while guinea fowl, pheasants, and other game birds are very com- 
monly sold without any plucking. Capons are frequently marketed 
_ with the feathers left on head, hackle, saddle, legs, and wings. When 
the plumage is naturally handsome it adds much to the attractive ap- 
pearance of the bird. Since laws for the protection of game birds have 
become more strict the feathers of some kinds of poultry have come 
to be valued for millinery and other ornamental purposes. Aside 
from this, they are of aid to the housekeeper because they give a 
clue to the age of the bird. If the tips of the quills at the end of the 
_ wing are sharply pointed the bird is probably young; the blunter they 
are, the older the bird 
SEX. 
Commonly it takes a trained eye to distinguish sex in dressed 
; birds, but fortunately this is not important save in the case of capons. 
_ When caponizing has been properly done the head is small for the 
size of the body, the comb and wattles are pale and withered, the 
; body plumper, rounder, and larger than in an ordinary fowl, and the 
spur abortive. If the operation was incomplete, the head will be 
like that of an ordinary bird and the body less rounded. Such birds, 
_ known technically as ‘‘slip capons,’’ are much inferior to true capons. 
a Pa EN eee 
CRAG SCO SAE PB ORIC 
