Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-06-14
Profits from Capons Compared With
LOLA Rnnc4orc y

On my way TO attend Il farmers III :
stitute in New York State last month
| had TO wait fifteen or twenty MIN
utes nj Rochester for branch-lln1
train. says \. j Hunter in the Amer
lean Poultry ADVOCATE. While strolling
about outside the station ] came upon
baggage truck on which were piled
three coops of coolserels, evidently on
their way to market.
A glance told me that the (perhaps)
% birds were past the soft rooster
age. and would be sold as "old roos-
ters;" they We're all showing some de-
velopment of spurs, and there was
other evidence of a hardening of the
flesh which makes roosters such poor
eating.
BOOSTERS are quoted in the market
reports as selling at eight to nine cents
pound, and these would weigh about
seven to eight pounds apiece. In that
local market they might sell for .
fraction more than if shipped to q
larger market. but calling them worth
IL cents pound would only bring
their value up To Si to SO cents apiece,
and the growers had fed them food to
and the growers had feed them food
fully to that value in the eight or nine
months of their lives. We cannot see
any profit there!
II they had been fattened and sold
when weighing about five pounds eacn
they would doubtless have brought is
TO 30 cents pound actually bringing
the grower as much money as they
will sell for now, and saved the food Of
three or four months.
Ii they had been caponized when
weighing two and a half to three
pounds apiece. and grown TO the age
they We're when sold to market. they
would probably have weighed an av-
erage OF pound apiece or more-and
sold for 20 cents pound, paying the
grower about 81 apiece profit.
Visiting friend near Bordentown,
~ j. four or five days later, he told
me his experience with his Barred
Rock cockerels this past season; he had
1871 cockerels caponzed. of which NUM-
Der he lost one, and the 100 remaining
were sold the week before Thanksgiv-
ing for 221a cents a pound. wholesale.
They averaged to weight eight and 4
quarter pounds apiece, and sold 70:
just about $3.50 apiece.
My friend said those capons paid him
between 80 and "a cents profit each.
The largest capon weighed 10 pounds
and 10 ounces. and the average Of the
1870 was 81 pounds apiece.
This lot of cockerels was hatchel
mostly in April. a dozen or so of them
were Matched the last of March and Il
few the first of May; as they We're
marketed between the goth md 25th OF
November they were but seIen to sew
en- and a half months old when mar
keted and paid the grower 30 70 "a
cents profit each.
They We're grown entirely, by the dry
feeding methods; the food being one
quarter whole oats, three -eghths each
corn and wheat. and beef scraps be-
fore them all the time. They We're Civ
en- about an acre of field to roam over
till about a month before marketing.
when they were penned up in mod
est yard.
My friend said these cockerels (ca-
ponized) were just no trouble at all
he kept the food hoppers supplied with
the foods and they did the rest. He
told us that those Barred Rock cock
erels weighed two pounds apiece when
eight weeks old. grown on all dry feed,
and that they We're big, broad-backed
husky" fellows, and felt solid when
lifted
On our way to the station at Borden
town we turned in at the drive way of
the man who buys up the fine dressed
poultry of that section and ships it to
New York and Boston. He was just
buying lot of about sixty splendid
great capons. which averaged to weigh
nine pounds apiece. and he paid 20
cents a pound for them. They We're
a good lot. well fatted, and the farmer
told us they paid him about 81 apiece
protit-from 90 cents to 81 apiece
Quite a difference between these and
the overgrown "od roosters" that had
"eaten their heads off"