Our Domestic Birds: Elementary Lessons in Aviculture

by John H. Robinson

Cold storage of poultry products. So abundant are the supplies of eggs in the spring, and of some kinds of dressed poultry in the summer, fall, and early winter, that large quantities could not be sold at any price at seasons of plenty if there were no way of keeping them until a season of scarcity. For about half a century after the production of eggs and poultry began to receive special attention in this country, the profits of the ordinary producer were severely cut every spring and fall, because the market was overstocked. Consumers derived little benefit from this situation, because they could not use the surplus before it spoiled. The popular idea of the way to remedy the conditions was to have hens lay when eggs were scarce, and to have poultry ready for sale when supplies were insufficient. Experience, however, has shown that it is practically impossible to have a very large proportion of things of this kind produced out of their natural season. The relatively small numbers of people who succeed in doing so make very good profits, but the masses of producers and consumers are not benefited.

The solution of the problem of carrying the surplus of a season of abundance to a season of scarcity was discovered when methods of making ice artificially were perfected and it was found that the equipment used in manufacturing ice could be used to cool, to any desired degree, rooms for the storage of perishable produce. This form of refrigeration was at first used in place of the ordinary method (with natural ice), to keep goods for short periods. Much larger quantities could be taken care of in this way when for any reason a market was temporarily overstocked.

For hundreds of years it had been quite a common practice to preserve eggs in various ways. By packing them in salt, or in salt brine, or in limewater, eggs may be kept in very good condition for several months, and sometimes for nearly a year. As limed and pickled eggs were regularly sold in the markets, every dealer in eggs at once saw the possibilities of cold storage as a factor in the market egg trade. Wherever there was a storage house, dealers began to buy eggs when prices were low, and store them to sell when prices were high. At first a great many of those who stored eggs lost money on them, either by the eggs spoiling in storage or because they kept the eggs too long, but after a few years' experience the operators of cold-storage plants learned the best temperatures for keeping the different kinds of produce and the best methods of arranging different articles in the chambers of the storage warehouses. They found that eggs kept best at 34 degrees Fahrenheit, that poultry must be frozen hard, and that the temperature in a storage chamber must not be allowed to vary. Those who were putting eggs and poultry in cold storage found that it did not pay to store produce that was not perfectly sound and good, and that products which had been in cold storage must be used promptly after being taken out, and also that they must plan their sales to have all stored goods sold before the new crop began to come in, or they would lose money.

Fig. 232. Dressed fowls cooling on racks in dry-cooling room. (Photograph from Bureau of Chemistry, United States Department of Agriculture)

The development of cold-storage methods and their extensive use have been of great benefit to producers and consumers, as well as to distributors of perishable food products. The storing of such products is a legitimate form of speculative business. It prevents waste and loss. The demand for eggs and poultry to go into cold storage raises the price at seasons of plenty and makes a good market for all eggs and poultry that are fit to store. The eggs and poultry that have been stored furnish consumers with supplies at reasonable prices for much longer seasons. As a rule supplies in storage are not kept there for very long periods. Speculators who want to be on the safe side plan very carefully so that most, if not all, of the stuff that they have stored shall be sold before new supplies become abundant in the market. To do this they have to watch very closely every condition affecting the markets, and to use good judgment in selling. Most of them do not, as is popularly supposed, hold their entire stock for the period when prices are highest. If they did, all would lose. Eggs begin to come out of storage about midsummer, and are withdrawn gradually for about six months. By far the greater part of the poultry stored goes into the warehouses in the fall and begins to come out soon after the winter holidays.

Within the limits of the time that goods may be carried in cold storage profitably, long storage has no more bad effects on eggs and poultry than refrigeration for short periods. Cold-storage products are usually of better than average quality if used immediately upon being withdrawn from storage.

Methods of selling at retail. For convenience in handling and counting them in quantities, eggs are packed in cases containing thirty dozen each, and wholesale transactions in eggs are by the case, but with the price usually quoted by the dozen. Consumers who use large quantities of eggs buy them by the case. The ordinary consumer buys them by the dozen. There is a widespread impression that, inasmuch as eggs vary greatly in size, the practice of selling them by count is not fair to the consumer. This feeling sometimes goes so far that laws are proposed, and even passed, requiring that eggs shall be sold by weight. Such a law does not remain long in force, because weighing small quantities of eggs is troublesome and the greater number of consumers prefer to buy them by the dozen. In fact, while eggs are nominally sold by count both at wholesale and at retail, they are usually assorted according to size, and the prices graduated to suit. Considering size, condition, quality, and color of shell, as many as ten grades of eggs are sometimes made. Although the color of the shell of an egg has no relation whatever to its palatability or its nutritive value, eggs of a certain color sometimes command a premium. Thus, in New York City white eggs of the best grades will bring from five to ten cents a dozen more than brown eggs of equal quality, while in Boston the situation is exactly reversed.

When most of the poultry of each kind in any market is of about the same size and quality, it is customary to sell live poultry at wholesale at a uniform price by the dozen, and to sell at retail by the piece or by the pair. But as soon as any considerable part of the poultry of any kind in a market is larger than the general run of supplies, a difference is made, in the prices per dozen or per piece or per pair, between small birds and large ones. If the size of the largest specimens further increases, the range of weights becomes too great to be classified in this way, and selling by weight soon becomes the common practice. Conditions are the same for dead poultry, except that the change to selling by weight comes more quickly.