First-Class Breeding Stock.
The above shows the necessity of first-class breeding stock to start with. I do not mean fancy stock at all, as many of the points of excellence claimed by the American standard militate directly against the market value of the birds. A few years ago several men came here to buy Pekin ducks for breeding stock. On looking at the birds and getting the price, one man said: "Those are the best birds I ever saw. I want thirty of the best birds you have." Another said: "They are fine birds, but I cannot afford to pay two dollars for a duck; have you no cheaper birds?" "Yes, I have some later birds—culls from which the rest have been selected. They are not as large as these. My late birds never attain the size of the earlier-hatched ones, and they will not lay quite as early. You can have your choice of these at one dollar each, which is about their market value."
He took those birds, and I consider when he made that choice that he threw away more than $100 of his first season's work alone, for, with a fair share of success he might easily expect to raise 100 young birds from each of his breeding ducks, and as the birds he chose were at least one-third lighter than those he rejected, their progeny would not be as heavy at a marketable age by at least one pound per bird. The excess in cost to him, had he bought the better birds, would have been but one cent on each of the young birds he raised. He lost, on making the choice he did, more than twenty cents on each bird, and this is not all; those birds will be small for generations to come. He never can get them up to the standard of the others. They will go upon the market as small birds, and as such, command at least two cents per pound less than the larger ones; in fact, his losses in this transaction will represent a large share of the profits.