Natural and Artificial Duck Culture

by James Rankin

The natural food of the duck is principally vegetable and animal, and is obtained in brooks, puddles, swales, and consists of flag, grass roots, small fish, pollywogs, etc. Unlike the hen, the duck has no crop,—the passage or duct leading from the throat to gizzard direct, is very small compared to the size of the bird. Consequently it does not assimilate or thrive on hard food. I am continually receiving letters from amateurs during the months of March and April, complaining that their ducks do not lay, at the same time saying that they give them all the corn they will eat. I write back suggesting soft food, giving ingredients and proportions. In an incredibly short space of time a postal will come to hand saying, "Thanks, my ducks are all laying." Success or failure in the poultry business often date their origin from just such trivial things as the above. So insignificant in themselves as to be entirely overlooked by the novice who, if he is persevering, will eventually discover both cause and remedy; but only through years of costly experiment and a loss of valuable time which he can never recall.

How to Feed Breeding Ducks for Eggs.

There should be quite a distinction between feeding ducks to obtain a supply of eggs and feeding them for market, as in one case the object is to lay on fat and the other is to furnish the most available supply of egg material. As before hinted, soft food is much more readily utilized in a duck's organization than a hen's. We make a habit of turning out our breeding ducks to pasture during the moulting season, housing them in the fall according to the nature of the season, say, from the middle of November to the first of December. We feed soft food morning and evening composed largely of bran with a little meal, keeping them purposely short to induce them to forage for themselves, but when the birds are housed this is all changed.

They are then fed on equal parts of corn meal, wheat-bran and low-grade flour, with about twelve or fifteen per cent. of animal food. One fourth of this food should be composed of vegetables cooked—say, small potatoes, turnips, etc., with all the green rye and refuse cabbage they will eat. We feed this compound morning and evening with a little corn, wheat and oats at noon. Feed all the birds will eat clean and no more. The birds, young and old, may be expected to lay in three weeks from the time they are housed. This part of the thing seems to be under perfect control. You turn in the proper variety of food and they cannot help turning out a generous supply of eggs.

The fertility however, cannot, at this season of the year be so perfectly controlled, as the standard of fertility in the first eggs is apt to be very low, but soon comes to a high point. The fecundity of these birds is wonderful. As a general thing each bird can be depended upon for 140 eggs each season, and as the eggs always command from 5 to 10 cents per dozen more than those from hens it makes the Pekin ducks more profitable for eggs alone than any other fowl.

Incubators.

With the necessary buildings constructed and the stock selected, the next thing required is the incubator, for I do not suppose the modern poultry grower is going to do his incubating with hens, for the simple reason that he cannot afford to. Hens show no desire to incubate when you want them to the most, or in time to command the high prices for ducks and chicks in the early spring, and this is attended with a loss of at least one-half of the season's profits.

I often have letters filled with questions concerning incubators. Which is the best incubator? Can a person of ordinary intelligence run one successfully? Do they require watching during the night? Is there an incubator in the market today that will hatch as well as the average hen? and many more of like import. To the first I would say that modesty forbids a candid answer. There are objections to many machines, though the same do not apply to all. It does not become me to mention their failings. But first of all do not buy a cheap incubator, as the conditions to which the material of an incubator is exposed are of the severest kind. It must be exposed constantly to a temperature of 103 degrees, and that in an atmosphere surcharged with moisture; and unless the material of which the machine is constructed is of the choicest kind, well kiln-dried and put together, the chances are that it will warp out of shape, admit drafts of air and injure, if not destroy, the regulation.

I do not think an incubator can ever be complete unless it is a double-cased machine. It requires that to effectually resist thermal changes. Years of careful experiment, and of experience in the competitive show room have convinced me of the truth of this. Extreme cold will affect the uniformity of heat in the egg-chamber of single-cased machines. Imagine if you can a single-cased machine constructed of five-eighth inch stuff, with a temperature of 103 degrees inside, and that of freezing outside. How can the eggs at the extreme corners and the thin cold sides of that machine be as warm as those in the centre? Of course that difference does not exist in warm weather, but that is the time when incubators are usually let alone and the business is given up to the old hen. Now, I say this frankly, as much for the benefit of incubator manufacturers as for their customers. I have letters every day from parties ordering circulars and saying that they have used from one to three machines of different makes, denouncing the machines and their makers in the most emphatic terms as frauds. Now, this is all wrong; one-half of the time you will find that it is the purchasers, not the makers, who are at fault. There are probably just as many honest incubator makers as there are in any other branch of business. But there is such a thing as a man being honest and yet ignorant.