Natural and Artificial Duck Culture

by James Rankin

Doubtless some of my readers are getting impatient and saying to themselves, "Why do you not give us some ideas how to do this business in the natural way? Many of us wish to begin small. Every one has not the conveniences to use or the means to command incubators." I am coming to that. I have a vivid recollection of using hens to incubate with some twenty years ago; and the persistent obstinacy of the perverse birds, the large proportion of valuable eggs spoiled and broken, as well as the time consumed in caring for them, are still fresh in my memory. It was wholesome discipline for me. It will be the same to the reader, and enable him to appreciate a good incubator later on.

A good, quiet hen, who attends closely to her business, will always hatch as large a proportion of her eggs as a good incubator; but there are so many with dispositions quite the opposite of this that it leaves the odds largely in favor of the machine. Success with hens depends quite as much with the operator as with machines. He must begin right and hold out to the end. As ducks seldom make good incubators, he will have to rely upon hens to do that business for him. The best breeds for that purpose I have found to be the Brahma or Plymouth Rock. A cross of these birds makes a good quiet sitter.

The birds must be got out early so that they will begin laying in the fall and be ready to incubate by the time you want them. It is well to have a room for the purpose and have the sitters by themselves. The nests should be in rows around the room, the feeding and water-troughs in the centre, with the dust-bath at one end. The nest boxes should be some fourteen inches square and about a foot high. Each one should be furnished with a slide so that the bird can be confined when necessary. If the slide is planed, all the better, as the date of the sitter can then be marked on it. The first thing is to prepare the nests. There is quite a knack in this; indeed, success largely depends upon this one thing.

The best material for this is soft hay or straw, cut six or eight inches long, placed upon a soil bottom. The sides of this nest should be packed hard, the bottom smooth and slightly concaved, not too much, as the tendency then would be to break the eggs if they crowded towards the centre. There should be plenty of room in the nest for the bird's feet and legs and the eggs too, so that she can turn at will without danger of breaking them. A piece of tarred paper five or six inches square, should be placed on the soil in the bottom of the nest; the whole covered with a half inch of finely cut straw. A few porcelain eggs should be placed in the nest, and when a hen shows a strong desire to incubate she should be placed upon the nest and the slide closed, giving the bird all the air she needs.

This removal should be made after dark as the birds are always more gentle then. It is well to set a number of hens at once, if they can be had, for reasons that will shortly appear. If the birds take kindly to the porcelain eggs they can be removed the next evening and replaced with ducks' eggs. As they are much larger than hen's eggs, nine or ten will be enough in cold weather and eleven or twelve in warm; proportioned, of course, something to the size of the bird. I always take the birds from their nests at a certain time every day; they will learn to expect it. This should be done during the warmest part of the day.

Handle Your Hens Carefully.

Now is the time to exercise caution. Take your birds off carefully several at a time. If one should fly in your face, break her eggs and spatter the contents over your person, and you should feel like wringing her neck, don't do it; you would only be so much out. Take things easy, don't get mad; she may do better next time, if not, replace her with one that will. When taking your birds off in cold weather cover the eggs at once with a circular piece of heavy paper previously prepared, and they will not cool perceptibly during the fifteen minutes the birds are off. Be sure and return each bird to her own nest, for if you have an uneasy sitter, though she may spoil her own eggs, she should have no opportunity to spoil those of others.

Besides, if you do not, hens that have been sitting but a day or two may be placed upon eggs just ready to hatch when she will not take kindly to the young birds as they hatch, and a great mortality is sure to follow. If you should be running 100 sitters, the more you can take off at a time the sooner you will get through. Have a sponge and warm water handy as you will have more or less broken eggs. The rest should be washed clean at once and returned to the nest. When hatching out be sure and remove the little ducklings, as fast as they come out, to a warm place to dry off, as owing to their long necks and peculiar shape the mother hen will unconsciously crush many more of them than she would of chicks. In fact, they should never see the hen after being taken away, as they can be grown to much better advantage, and with far less mortality, in brooders.

And just here is the great economy of setting six or eight hens at the same time; the young ducklings can be all put together in one brooder and cared for with less trouble and with less mortality than that resulting from one hen with her brood. The ducklings should be confined in yards, the same care and feed given them as already recommended for artificially hatched birds. Allusion has already been made to the proverbial timidity of the Pekin duck. This sometimes causes trouble to the grower when the birds are confined together in large numbers. When six or eight weeks old, and even after they are full grown, they often get frightened, or gallied as it were, in dark nights. Being unable to see, one bird will touch another, he will spring away and come in contact with several more.

In an instant the whole are in the most violent commotion, whirling and treading each other down. It will be a perfect stampede and will sometimes be kept up the entire night. After a night of such dissipation many of the birds will appear completely jaded out, and some of them unable to rise. Of course, this must be stopped at once or the grower may bid farewell to all fattening or laying on the part of the birds. Hanging lanterns in the yards at stated distances will usually restore order. It will not be needed when there is a moon. See that there are no sharp projections in either yards or breeding-pens, as both old and young birds are often lamed for life by simply coming in contact with them in the night.