The building just described we term our nursery, and has a capacity of about 2,500 birds. When full, the older birds are probably about two weeks old, and of course these older ones must be removed to make room for successive hatches of younger birds. For this purpose, we constructed a building 125 feet long, 32 feet wide, which we style our double brooding house. It runs east and west with a walk four feet wide through the centre, with brooding-pens on each side. This building has the same capacity of a single building 250 feet long, and accommodates about 5,000 birds. On the south side of this walk our brooder boxes are arranged.
At one end of the building is a heater, from which an inch-and-a-half flow and return pipe runs under the brooder boxes the entire length of the building and furnishes heat for the little birds. The brooder-boxes are located twenty inches from the side of the walk. The ducklings are fed and watered in this space, and are not allowed in it except for that purpose. To effect this, the covers of the brooding-boxes, which are six feet long by two feet wide, are cut in the centre the entire length, and hinged with a perpendicular lip, which when closed, meets an upright board below, some two inches high, shutting brooders tight, excluding ducklings from feeding apartment, so that it is always sweet and clean.
By this arrangement, the ducklings are all fed and watered from the walk, thus reducing the labor to a minimum, while there is no danger of crushing the little birds under foot or under the troughs. The attendant is not hampered in his movements, but can work as quickly as he likes. All he has to do is to distribute the food and water, throwing the covers back as he goes, when the ducklings, which are always waiting, rush in and soon fill themselves. Twenty minutes is all that is required for them to eat and drink.
A person of good judgment can easily determine about how much the birds will consume, though it is well for him to pass along the walk, giving a little more food where their wants are not satisfied, or taking up what is left over, shutting the covers down when the birds are through.
As this building is well piped, distributing water at both ends, as well as at the mixing-box and heater, it makes the feeding almost a pastime, the work is done so easily. This building is just what we have been looking for. There are none on the place that pleases us so well. Its many advantages over a single building must be evident to all. The increased facility for doing the work, as well as its economy in housing many more birds for the money invested, are not the least.
When planning this building, we had some misgiving about running it east and west as the lay of the land required, thinking that the exposure on the north side during the inclement weather of the early spring, would confine the young birds to the building and they would suffer for want of exercise, but we were agreeably disappointed as we found that they thrived equally as well, if not better, on the north side as on the south, proving what I have always known in duck culture, that the extreme heat of summer is more debilitating to young birds than the cold of winter, and that early hatched birds will always be of larger size and more robust physique than late ones.
That is why I have always made it a point to select my early hatched birds for breeding purposes. I have never known any too good for that. I insert cuts of this double building, with the older ducklings on the north side and the younger ones on the south. Were I to build another, I should duplicate it in every respect.