The idea has been somewhat prevalent that there is some guarded secret about the rations used in crate-fattening.  This is a mistaken notion.  The rations used contain no new or wonderful constituent, and although individual feeders may have their own formulas, the general composition of the feed is common knowledge.  The feed most commonly used consists of finely ground grain, mixed to a batter with buttermilk or sour skim-milk.  The favorite grain for the purpose is oats finely ground and the hulls removed.  Oats may be used as the sole grain, and is the only grain recommended as suitable to be fed alone.  Corn is used, but not by itself.  Shorts, ground barley or ground buckwheat are sometimes used.  Beans, peas, linseed and gluten meals may be used in small quantities.  When milk products are obtainable they are a great aid to successful fattening.  Tallow is often used in small quantities toward the finish of the feeding period.  The assumption is that it causes the deposit of fat-globules throughout the muscular tissues, thus adding to the quality of the meat.  The following simple rations show that there is nothing complex about the crate-fed chicken’s bill of fare: 

No. 1.—­Ground oats, 2 parts; ground barley, 1 part; ground corn, 1 part; mixed with skim-milk.

No. 2.—­Ground corn, 4 parts; ground peas, 1 part; ground oats, 1 part; meat-meal, 1 part; mixed with water.

A ration used by some fatters with great success is composed of simply oatmeal and buttermilk.

The feed is given as a soft batter and is left in the troughs for about thirty minutes, when the residue is removed.  Chickens are generally fed three times per day.  Water may or may not be given, according to the weather and the amount of liquid used in the food.

The chicken that has been crate-fattened has practically the same amount of skeleton and offal as the unfattened specimen, but carries one or two pounds more of edible meat upon its carcass.  Not only is the weight of the chicken and amount of edible meat increased, but the quality of the meat is greatly improved, consisting of juicy, tender flesh.  For this reason the crate-feeding process is often spoken of as fleshing rather than as fattening.

The enforced idleness causes the muscular tissue to become tender and filled with stored nutriment.  The fatness of a young chicken, crate-fed on buttermilk and oatmeal, is a radically different thing from the fatness of an old hen that has been ranging around the corn-crib.

The crate-fattening industry while deserving credit for great improvement in the quality of chicken flesh in the regions where it has been introduced, cannot on the whole be considered a great success.  It is commonly reported that some of the firms instrumental in its introduction lost money on the deal.  The crate-fattening plant has come to stay in the communities where careful methods of poultry raising are practiced, and where the stock is of the best, but when a plant is located in a newly settled region where the poultry stock is small and feed scarce, the venture is pretty apt to prove a fiasco.