National Agricultural Library

Poultry Feeding and Fattening: Including Preparation for Market, Special Finishing Methods, As Practiced by American and Foreign Experts, Handling Broilers, Capons, Waterfowl, etc

Orange Judd Company. New York

The weak point in general poultry books has been the scant attention given to the subject of the standard and improved methods of feeding and marketing. The result is that the practical knowledge of these branches of poultry keeping has lagged behind the others.

Of all live stock, poultry is most often misfed, overfed or underfed. Conditions are artificial, the individuals fed are numerous and their needs not uniform. Most important of all is the need of the same careful rules and experience which guide feeders of cattle, sheep or hogs. It is only in recent years that much attention has been devoted to special study of poultry to make possible a collection of reliable information on the subject. Given good stock, good feeding is the key to success.

The subject is approached largely from the side of the best practice and experience, although the underlying science of feeding has been explained as fully as needful. In the absence of digestion tables applied to fowls and of a sufficient number of feeding trials, the science of feeding poultry has not yet reached a point where the so-called scientific ration can be compounded without large reference to the actual experience of successful feeders.

The subject has been made to cover all branches, including chickens, broilers, capons, turkeys, waterfowl : how to feed under various conditions and for different purposes. The whole subject of capons and caponizing is treated in detail. The chapters on fattening and preparing for market are intended to be very complete on a subject scantily covered in other books.