The Oakley herald. [volume] (Oakley, Idaho) 1908-1961, 1917-04-06

ed, but it is the surest way of having
it properly thawed. In warm weather
it should be put in the refrigerator
to thaw, but in cold weather a moder.
ately cool room will do as well. If ii
is impossible to do the thawing at
home, the marketman should not be
allowed to do 1t until a short time be-
fore delivery.
although frozen poultry is hardly
to be chosen when fresh birds are in
the market, it undoubtedly has the ad
vantage Of furnishing chickens, tur
keys, and other birds when the natural
supply Is lacking and thus increasing
the variety Of the meat list"
Good Table Poultry.
The following statement of the meth
DDS by which good table poultry can
be recognized by the purchaser IL
made in the bulletin:
"In freshly killed bird the feet
feel moist, soft, and timber, and If it
was dressed with the head on, the eyes
look bright and full. AS it becomes
stale the eyes shrink and the feet dry
and harden when too stale, I. e., when
decomposition is well under way, the
body turns dark and greenish or be-
comes Shiny. The flesh should be
neither fiabby nor stiff, but should give
evenly and gentle when pressed by the
finger. 1t is very difficult to distin-
guish between good cold-storage and
freshly-killed poultry.
"One of the commonest ways Of test
ing the age Of dressed poultry is to
take the end of the breastbone farth-
est from the head between thumb and
finger and attempt to bend 1t to one
side. In a very young bird, say a
broiler' chicken or green goose, 1t
will be easily bent, like the cartilage
in the human ear in bird year or
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
4 the feet are left on the carcass, they
furnish mark of age. In young
bird they are soft and smooth, becom-
ing 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 gen.
orally occur on male chickens. On
male broilers and tender roasting
chickens they are small on older high
er-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 year old are said
to have black feet, which grow pink
up to three years old and then gradual
ly 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
pigeon.
"In ducks and geese the flexibility
Of the windpipe is a mark of youth
1t can be easily squeezed and moved
when the bird is young, but later
grows rigid and fixed. If the tips Of
the quilts at the end of the wing are
sharply pointed the bird is probably
young; the blunter they are, the older
the bird.
"When caponizing has been properly
done, the head is small for the size OF
the body. and comb and wattles are
pale and withered, the body plumper,
rounder, and larger than in an ordinary
fowl, ard 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."