Natural and Artificial Duck Culture

by James Rankin

Many of the manufacturers of incubators know very little about the first principles of artificial incubation. They have the idea that a simple heat regulator is all that is necessary to insure the success of an incubator, when in reality it is only one of the many requirements. I will enumerate some of the most essential points, viz.: heat regulation; uniformity of heat in egg-chamber; absolute control of heat by the operator on any given egg-tray; automatic moisture supply; accurate thermometers; thorough construction and good material to avoid warping and shrinkage, together with a safe lamp adjustment.

There are many other minor points which will come up with care of machines. I am often asked, "Why do so many fail to hatch with incubators?" I will answer by saying: "Not because it is difficult; for I have always found it a far more difficult thing to grow ducks and chicks successfully after they are hatched, than it is to hatch them." Doubtless everyone knows that an incubator, different from other machines, must run three weeks continually night and day, (and when filled with duck eggs, four weeks,) and preserve an even temperature all the while.

Some machines as described above, are not adapted to this business, and some men are not adapted to the use of machines even when they are good ones. They are not willing to bestow the little but intelligent and regular care required, and many times during the four weeks they will forget some of the most essential points, such as replenishing their lamps, or forget to attach the extinguishers, thus depriving the machine of all self-control, or they neglect to trim the lamps for days, and perhaps a week, allowing the wick to crust and the heat to decrease. Others of nervous temperament will open their machines every fifteen minutes during the day and get up many times during the night to do the same thing, necessarily creating a great variation in the temperature of the machine. Now, all these, when repeated often enough, mean disaster and grief. One man who had been very successful, said he liked the hatching very well, but there was too much confinement growing chicks and ducks, and he was not going to make a slave of himself any longer.

Another very young man who has been uniformly successful, and is running four large machines, said that the hatching and care of incubators was nothing, as he simply looked at his machines twice per day, but that the care of chicks and ducks was hard work; but there was more money in it than anything else he could do, and he should stick to it. Another man, because his machine did not run to suit him, threw his boot at it, knocking the regulation all off, which he called upon me to duplicate. (This man has done better since and increased the number of his machines). So the reader will see that there are cranks even among the poultry men, and that many of them enter the poultry business simply because they are looking for an easy job,—a sad mistake on their part. I have always noticed that the man who knows the least, but is willing to acquire knowledge and follow instructions implicitly, is the man who generally succeeds.

Best Place for Incubators.

Having secured a good machine, the next thing is to locate it where it will give you the least trouble to run it, and at the same time do you the most good. The best place for this is either in a barn or house cellar or in some building partly under ground, for obvious reasons. Though a good machine can be regulated to run in any temperature (provided it can generate heat enough), yet constant thermal changes of 30 or 40 degrees between night and day will necessitate regulating to meet them,—as the amount of flame required to run a machine in a temperature of 40 degrees, will be far in excess of that needed to run it in one of 70 degrees, for, though the change will be very slow in a nicely packed double cased machine, yet in time even that change will affect.

This, of course, could be easily overcome with a little care, yet it is just as well to avoid all unnecessary care and trouble in the beginning; there will be still enough left to keep you thinking. In a common building above ground during the winter months it will often freeze around your machine, and in turning eggs in a freezing atmosphere do it as quickly as you can, as it will always cool your eggs perceptibly, and more or less derange the temperature of your machine. This is of course decidedly injurious and will more or less impair the hatch. Now, this is a very important matter, and people do not give it sufficient consideration.

It is even advocated by some incubator manufacturers, that eggs should be cooled every day to 70 degrees, for the simple reason that the old hen does. They do not take into consideration that it is a necessity for the old hen, but may not be for the embryo chick. When the hen leaves her eggs to feed, and they become partially cold, when she recovers them and brings those eggs in immediate contact with the rapidly-pulsating arteries of her body, in fifteen minutes they have acquired their normal heat. With the machine it will require an hour or two.

To meet this difficulty, suitable instructions should be given with and to suit different machines. Where the eggs are turned automatically inside the machine, it is necessary that they should be cooled at least once a day during the last two weeks of the hatch. Taking the eggs out to turn twice each day, as in the Monarch, cools them sufficiently during the winter months; in warm weather, leaving the outside and inside doors open while turning cools them sufficiently.

Some incubator manufacturers will tell you that thermal changes, however great, will not affect their machines. Their patrons tell a different story. No machine was ever made, or ever will be, that will run as well or give as good results amid constant thermal changes as in an even temperature. It is true that they reduce the heat, but it is by admitting large draughts of air, running off the moisture and completely destroying the humidity of atmosphere in their machines. Then, how about those little ducklings which have been pipped forty-eight hours? They can never get out unless you help them.