Jack slep Oct 13, 2016:

finish - WordReference.com Dictionary of English
www.wordreference.com/definition/finish

Animal Husbandry (of livestock) to become fattened for market. finish with: ... a material for application in finishing. Animal Husbandry the fat tissue of livestock. To ready (livestock) for market by feeding a diet calculated to produce the desired weight. So you could say "to finish young stock, poultry, etc

Susan Welsh (asker) Oct 12, 2016:

Down with porkycide! Yeah, it sounds a bit weird to me too, which is why I asked the question rather than believe Multitran. I hoped there'd be some farmers out there in Proz-land, but apparently not. However, I don't think "raising chickens and pigs" makes it, since these unemployed guys are only being asked to do the fattening-up part of the process, not all the rest of it. If the author had wanted to use the more general formulation "raising chickens and pigs," I'm sure she would have had a fine Russian way of saying it. Cheers to you, Misha

The Misha Oct 12, 2016:

Fattening is by no means wrong It's just that it sounds a bit weird to a lay ear. It makes me think of Baba Yaga and poor little Hansel and Gretel or whoever they were she was fattening. And also, what if something goes wrong and they are not fattened properly? That makes them what - Underfattened? Not fat enough? - like those unfortunate bluish chickens from Soviet government farms. Before you know it, you are guilty of porkycide, the fat is beautiful people are all over you and you are suddenly evil incarnate, and thy name is Donald or Adolf. See what I mean? Or maybe it's just my paranoia acting up. Cheers, Susan.

Susan Welsh (asker) Oct 12, 2016:

A lot of the Google hits... for these suggested terms pertain to Africa and other third world areas. It pertains to all sorts of creatures, especially cows. The entry on "Livestock, Fattening of" in TheFreeDictionary.com originates with the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, which suggests that this may be a particularly Russian term. However "livestock fattening" does indeed exist in the U.S., so I guess I can go with that: https://books.google.com/books?id=z8wSS5mneuQC&pg=PA266&lpg=...

The Misha Oct 12, 2016:

Compare the number of Google hits on both links provided by rns - 5-6K each - with the number of hits for "raising poultry" - 7+ MILLION. Outside of a technical agricultural discussion, such as your case seems to be, I'd definitely go with "raising chickens and pigs" as a more natural choice. It's mostly pigs anyway since you can't raise calves using leftover human food and such, so no one does it. Raising cattle (i.e. cows) is actually much more expensive, hence your regular beef prices. Pigs, on the other hand, are much easier to deal with, and they eat anything - and taste better too, unless you are... ahem, one of those folks.