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The first essential in marketing dressed poultry is to have the birds
well fattened - not that greasy fat which lies in layers under the
skin and in chunks upon the vital organs - but the delicate
combinations of fat and flesh which beef butchers speak of as "well
marbled." In fowls, it is fibre upon fibre, tissue upon tissue, of
alternate flesh and fat that makes the very muscles stand apart
instead of grinding upon each other.
This choice flesh is not put on fowls by feeding all the corn they can
be induced to eat - that method gives the chunks and the layers of
fat. Rather it is obtained best on both old and young birds by crate
or confined fattening, using ground grain stirred into sour milk to
the consistency of batter, feeding the birds all they will eat twice
a day, withdrawing what they do not eat in half an hour, and darkening
the crates until next feeding time. This process so softens the muscles
and tendons of the birds that even old ones are quickly improved and
some-times will pass for youngsters. The rapidity with which flesh can
be added by this process is very remarkable. Vigorous, growing
cockerels can be increased in weight from three and a half pounds to
five pounds in three weeks.
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