National Agricultural Library

Poultry as Food

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Poultry has for many centuries supplied a large proportion of the food of civilized man, and in almost every country of the world the poultry industry is an important branch of agriculture. According to the returns of the census for 1900, the total number of chickens, including guinea fowls, on farms in the United States was 233,598,085; the total number of turkeys, 6,599,367; geese, 5,676,863, and ducks, 4,807,358. From the statistics gathered it appeared that poultry was kept on 88.8 per cent of the farms in this country, and that the total value of the poultry raised on farms in 1899 was $136,891,877. Although many chickens are kept for eggs rather than for their flesh, a good proportion of them finally appear in the meat market, and almost all of the other varieties of poultry are bred primarily for the table. It is safe to say that 250,000,000 chickens and other kinds of poultry are consumed in this country each year.

Farmers' Bulletin

Number 182