Our Domestic Birds: Elementary Lessons in Aviculture

by John H. Robinson

Market Duck Farms

History. The growing of ducks for the New York City market began on Long Island at a very early stage of specialization in poultry culture. Many farmers there produced a few hundred ducks for this market each year, and found it very profitable. As the demand increased they tried to increase production to meet it, but were unable to do this, because there was then in this country no duck adapted to their needs. The Aylesbury Duck, the favorite table duck in England, was too delicate. The only hardy white duck that they had was the White Muscovy. This breed was not very satisfactory, because the females are much smaller than the males, but they had to use white ducks, for the colored ducks will not pick clean at the age at which ducks can be marketed most profitably; so they did the best they could with the White Muscovy Duck, under the restrictions placed upon their operations by the difficulty of getting broody hens. While the industry was mostly on Long Island, there were duck growers here and there on the mainland in the vicinity of New York and also near Boston, but there were no duck farms of any importance in other parts of the country.

Fig. 133. View from the windmill tower in Fig. [132]

When the White Pekin Ducks were brought from China, and reports of their hardiness, prolificacy, and rapid growth were circulated, the duck growers were at first very skeptical, but they soon learned that the reports which they had supposed were greatly exaggerated were literally true. Then every duck grower had to have Pekin Ducks. The production increased very much after the introduction of the Pekin Duck, but the growth of the industry was still retarded by the impossibility of getting all the hens that were needed to hatch the eggs. Several incubators had been invented, which hatched very well for those who had the skill to operate them, but which, in the hands of unskilled operators, spoiled most of the eggs placed in them. About 1890 appeared the first incubators with automatic regulators that really worked so that the ordinary person could manage the machines successfully. One of the New England duck growers who had invented the best of the machines used before this time was already growing ducklings on quite a large scale. On Long Island, where most of the duck farms were located, the farmers were hard to convince of the superiority of incubators for their work. Indeed, the only way that they could be convinced was by practical demonstrations right on their own farms. The first incubators used there were machines set up on trial by a manufacturer who had invented an incubator which was very easy to operate. This man went to the duck growing district, placed machines on various farms, and went from farm to farm daily to attend to them, until the farmers were fully convinced that the machines would do what was claimed for them. In a very short time the artificial method had displaced hatching with hens on the commercial duck farms, and the business was growing amazingly. Within ten years there were many farms producing from 15,000 to 20,000 ducks a year, and a few producing from 40,000 to 50,000. One man on Long Island, who operated two farms a few miles apart, sometimes grew 80,000 ducks in a season. Those who were successful on a large scale became moderately rich. Without exception the successful duck farms have been built up from small beginnings by men who had very little capital to start with. Some of these farms have been operated on a large scale for twenty years.

Fig. 134. House and yards for breeding stock

Fig. 135. Brooder house for young ducklings

Fig. 136. Fattening sheds and yards

VIEWS OF WEBER BROTHERS' DUCK FARM, WRENTHAM, MASSACHUSETTS

As would be expected, the success of the big duck farms has led many people with large capital to undertake to establish duck farms on a still larger scale. But these undertakings do not last long, because it is practically impossible to secure for such a plant an organization as efficient as one developed by the owner of a plant which has grown from small beginnings under his own management.

Description. A large duck farm is a very interesting place at any time, but is most interesting at the height of the growing season, when all the operations in the business are going on at the same time. The total number of birds on a farm at any time is very much less than the product for the season, because the first ducks hatched will have gone to market before the eggs which produce the last are laid, but in flocks of more than 10,000 the impression on the visitor is much the same, no matter what the numbers.

Fig. 137. Duck house and yards on seashore, Fishers Island, New York

Duck farms are of two types: those located on streams or inlets have the yards for all but the smallest ducks partly in the water; the inland duck farms, on which the young ducks grown for market are given no water except for drinking. Some of the inland farms give the breeding stock access to streams and ponds only during the molting season, when they can be allowed to run in large flocks and a small area of water will serve for all. For a time after the large inland duck farms were first established it was claimed by many that ducks grew faster when not allowed to swim than they did when allowed to follow their natural inclination to play in the water. No doubt some ducks which were in dry yards grew better than some having access to large bodies of water, and on the whole as good ducks were grown on the inland farms as on those near the water, but it has long been known that it is much easier to manage the ducks when they have water in their yards. There are two reasons for this: in the first place, they are much more contented in the water; in the second place, they feel very much safer on the water when anything alarms them, and will keep quiet on it when, if they could not retreat to the water, they would rush about in a panic and many would be injured.

Fig. 138. Quarters for breeding stock on an inland duck farm. Swimming tanks in the yards

Ducks are very timid and easily panic-stricken. The duck grower has to take every possible precaution to guard against disturbances of this kind, because ducks are so easily injured, and even if they are not hurt, a sudden fright will make them shrink a great deal in weight. Visitors who come merely out of curiosity are not desired on duck farms at any time, and none but those familiar with the handling of ducks are ever allowed to go about the farm without a guide who will see that the ducks are not disturbed. Many visitors think that this is unreasonable, but the duck grower knows that the mere presence of a stranger excites the ducks, and that a person walking about might put a flock in a panic which would at once extend to other flocks, simply because he was not familiar enough with the ways of ducks to detect the signs of panic in a flock which he was approaching, and to stand still until they were quiet, or move very slowly until he had passed them. If a stranger, walking between yards where there were five thousand ducks fattening, made an unconscious movement that set the ducks in motion, the loss to the grower could hardly be less than from five to ten dollars, and might be very much more. Where such little things can cause so much trouble and loss, the difference between success and failure may lie in preventing them.

On a duck plant with a capacity of 50,000 ducks everything is on a big scale. Although ducks will stand more crowding than other kinds of poultry, it takes a large farm for so many. The buildings will cover many thousands of square feet of land and, though of the cheapest substantial structure, will represent an investment of fifteen or twenty thousand dollars. Incubators, appliances, breeding stock, and supplies on hand will amount to about as much. The incubator cellar will be several times as large as the cellar under the ordinary dwelling house. Before the so-called mammoth incubators were made, the largest-sized machines heated with lamps were used on all duck farms, and an incubator cellar would sometimes contain as many as seventy incubators having a capacity of from 200 to 300 eggs each. Now many of the large farms use the mammoth incubators, with a capacity of from 6000 to 18,000 eggs each. These mammoth incubators are really series of small egg chambers so arranged that the entire series is heated by pipes coming from a hot-water heater, instead of each chamber having an independent lamp heater as in the small, or individual, machines.

Fig. 139. Feeding young ducks on farm of W. R. Curtiss & Co., Ransomville, New York

As nearly all kinds of supplies are bought by the carload, and as stocks must be kept up so that there will be no possibility of running short of foodstuffs, a great deal of space is required for storage. Large quantities of ice are needed to cool the dressed ducks before shipping them to market, so the farm must have its own ice houses and store its own supply of ice in the winter. For some years after duck farms grew to such large proportions, the mixing of mash was all done by hand, with shovels. Often one man was kept busy all day long mixing mash, and very hard work it was. Now the men on the large farms mix the food in big dough mixers, such as are used by bakers, and work that would take a man an hour is done in a few minutes.

In some sections the killing and dressing of the ducks is done by men with whom duck picking is a trade at which they work during its season. In others the killing is done by men, but the pickers are women living in the vicinity of the farm, who can be secured for this work whenever they are needed. A farm that markets 50,000 ducks in a season will keep a large force of pickers busy the greater part of the time for many months. Quite a large building is required to provide room for the pickers to work in, for tanks for cooling 500 or more ducks at once, for space for the men who pack them, and for lofts for drying the feathers before they are sold. This drying process must be used whether the birds are dry-picked or are scalded before the feathers are removed. Water on feathers dries quickly, but the oil in the quills dries very slowly. The feathers from one duck are worth only a few cents, and where small numbers are grown the feathers are hardly worth the trouble of saving and curing. On a large plant the total product of feathers for a season amounts to several thousand dollars, and it pays to provide facilities for taking proper care of them.

After the crop of ducks on an inland farm is marketed, the fences must be removed and the land plowed and sowed with winter rye. This crop is used extensively for this purpose, because it is a gross feeder and takes the impurities from the soil very fast, and also furnishes a good supply of green food for the stock ducks during the winter and for the first young ducks put on the land in the spring. Where the farms are large enough, all ducks may be kept off a part of the land each year and crops grown on it. The farms located at the waterside do not have to look to the purification of the land so carefully, because the rains wash a great deal of the droppings away. Some of these farms get large quantities of river grass from the streams and cut it up to mix with the food for the ducks.