Chicken + Turkey

choi

(1) Matt Ridley, Reasons to Crow About Ever-Bigger Chickens. Wall Street Journal, Oct 22, 2011.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 37210686613464.html

(a) Quote:

"Of all the amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals in the world, the most abundant species is probably the chicken. At any one time, approximately 20 billion cocks and hens are alive on the planet (though never for long).

"Fifty years ago, chicken was a scarce delicacy in many European countries.

"selective breeding led to birds that were more efficient at converting grain into meat. Remarkably, this genetic improvement even now shows no sign of tailing off. Ten years ago, Dr Gerry Havenstein at North Carolina State University did a careful study of weight gain in chickens, comparing (under identical conditions) a modern 21st-century breed with a 1957 breed that had been kept going. He found that, at six weeks of age, the modern chicken was six times as heavy and had 9% more breast meat. Of that improvement, he found, 85% came from genetics and only 15% from better feed. By 2001, when the study was done, a chicken reached the weight at which it would be killed in one-third of the time and after eating one-third of the food compared with the 1957 breed.

"No less confounding is the fact that this effect has not been confined to chickens: The milk yield of dairy cattle shows similar linear improvement.

(b) Note:
(i) The artricle said, "The red jungle fowl was domesticated around 4,000 years ago in India."

(A) Red junglefowl
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Junglefowl
(in Pheasant family; thought to be ancestors of the domestic chicken)
(B) chicken
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken

Quote from Wiki:

* from section 4.1 Origin:

The domestic chicken is descended primarily from the Red Junglefowl (Gallus gallus) and is scientifically classified as the same species. As such it can and does freely interbreed with populations of red jungle fowl.

"The traditional poultry farming view is stated in Encyclopaedia Britannica (2007): 'Humans first domesticated chickens of Indian origin for the purpose of cockfighting in Asia, Africa, and Europe. Very little formal attention was given to egg or meat production... '

* "Chickens farmed for meat are called broiler chickens. Chickens will naturally live for 6 or more years, but broiler chickens typically take less than 6 weeks to reach slaughter size. A free range or organic meat chicken will usually be slaughtered at about 14 weeks of age.


(2) Geoffrey A Fowler, These Birds Aren't Spring Chickens, But People Are Gobbling Them Up ; Some 'heritage' turkeys trace lineage to the 1890s; Roots of the Standard Bronze. Wall Street Journal, Nov 23, 2011.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 54021810282142.html

Quote:

"It [a heritage turkey] cost about‬ three‬ times what she would have paid for an organic supermarket breed * * * Heritage turkeys, which include eight breeds certified by the American Poultry Association, take about twice as long to grow as commercial turkeys and cost about three times as much to raise. At retail, a 14-pound heritage bird can cost $100 or more.‬

"Commercial white turkeys have such big breasts they can't walk straight and, without the help of a farmer, they can't accomplish the physical union required to reproduce.‬

"Breeders can't trace their turkeys to Plymouth Rock, and historians don't know if the Pilgrims ate turkey at the first Thanksgiving.

Note:
(a) no spring chicken: "No longer a young person, as in Sally's no spring chicken, but she plays a fine game of tennis . This unflattering expression, often applied to women, has been used since the early 1700s, although spring  was omitted from the earliest citation (1711)."
Christine Ammer, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/no+spring+chicken
(b) Bronze (turkey)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_(turkey)

(i) Some Bronzes have brown feathers all over.
(ii) wild turkey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_turkey
(Meleagris gallopavo; native to North America; see map for distribution; domestic turkey derives from the South Mexican subspecies of wild turkey; The Aztecs domesticated the southern Mexican subspecies, M. g. gallopavo, giving rise to the domestic turkey; The Spaniards brought this tamed subspecies back to Europe with them in the mid-16th century)  
(c) Narragansett Turkey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narragansett_Turkey
(descends from a cross between the Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) and the domestic turkey brought to Colonial America by English and other European colonists beginning in the 17th century; named for Narragansett Bay [which was in turn named after the tribe that lived around)

A photo from American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.
http://www.albc-usa.org/cpl/narragansett.html
(d) Bourbon Red
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbon_Red
(e) pin feather
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin_feather

You can search images.google.com for a better picture.


(3) Kim Severson, In This Town, Turkey Picks Up Bill for Dinner. New York Times, Nov 24, 2011.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/2 ... 20turkey&st=cse(a) three consecutive paragraphs:

"Butterball growers * * * work under contracts with the company. Every two or three months, a load of baby turkeys gets dropped off.

"The company provides the feed, regulates how the birds should be raised and provides veterinary care. The farmer provides the long, low turkey houses and tends to the birds. When the hens are about 14 pounds and the toms about 22, a crew from Butterball comes in at night (turkeys are calmer at night) and hauls them off to the plant.

"After accounting for the costs of raising the birds and their size, the farmer gets a check.

(b) Note:
(i) Ozark, Arkansas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozark,_Arkansas
(The name "Aux Arc", later simplified to Ozark, was given to this bend of the river by the French explorers when they were mapping out this land)

In French: à + les > aux
(ii) The Ozarks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ozarks
(Although referred to as the Ozark Mountains, the region is actually a high and deeply dissected plateau; section 1 Etymology: town of Ozark, Arkansas is located on the north bank at this very location [the bend of Arkansas River])
(iii) Butterball
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterball
(a brand of turkey; produced by Butterball LLC: Founded  2006, Headquarters  Garner [a suburb of Raleigh, state capital], North Carolina, a joint venture of Smithfield Foods and Maxwell Farms Inc)  
(iv) For oil gland, see uropygial gland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uropygial_gland
(found in the large majority of birds that secretes an oil (preen oil) that birds use for preening)