The Chicken-of-Tomorrow Program; Its Influence on “Meat-Type” Poultry Production

A CHANGE of gigantic proportions has taken place in the Poultry Industry of the United States. Meat-type poultry has taken its place alongside “Production Bred”—and Standard Bred Fancy Chickens. Changing economic conditions and a well-organized “Chicken-of-Tomorrow” Program has speeded up this evolution. The practice of raising Commercial Meat Chickens on mass production methods has proved profitable, and the volume has more than doubled in five years’ time. The number raised in the United States increased from 275 million in 1946 to 616 million in 1950, and the expansion has continued during 1951. This added interest created enormous pressure for an improved meat-type chicken, a more efficient ration, larger hatching and processing facilities, and better marketing and merchandising procedure. In 1945 Howard C. Pierce, Poultry Research Director, A & P Food Stores, in an address before a Canadian Poultry meeting remarked that someone would confer a boon upon the poultry . . .