with the exception of a little more glass in the latter, should be precisely the same both for ducks and ducklings. The internal arrangements can be made to suit. As I shall give a full description with cuts of this building later, I will now merely give the manner in which it should be arranged as a good breeding-house for ducks. This building should be fifteen feet wide and any length required. It should have an uneven double roof, five-foot posts in the rear and four foot in front. About one-quarter of this front should be glass. There should be a walk the entire length of the building three and one-half feet wide. The main body of the building should be divided into pens twenty feet long, by either lath or wire two feet high.
The walk should be separated from the pens by laths three inches apart, to allow the birds to feed and water from the walk. This method simplifies the labor very much, as it enables the operator to load his barrow, travel the whole length of a 200-foot building and feed and water 500 ducks in a few minutes. This arrangement has many other advantages besides, as it permits the birds to feed and water readily from the walk without being able to waste either, or mix the contents of food and water-dishes with filth. It also prevents the birds from sopping the straw in the bottom of their pens, or of soiling their white plumage, both of which they are bound to do if possible, and as the duck, especially the Pekin, is a very timid bird, this plan familiarizes her with the appearance of the attendant without bringing her into actual contact with him.
Use Half the Pens for Feeding Purposes.
One-half or ten feet of the twenty-foot pens should be utilized for feeding purposes. The lower board of this slat partition should not be more than three inches wide and should rest upon the ground so the birds can readily feed over it. As this ten-foot partition is but two feet high, the attendant can readily step over it to pick up a stray egg occasionally. Six feet of this partition should be portable and secured with a groove or button so it can be easily removed to allow the entrance of a barrow in cleaning out the pens; this should be done when the birds are out, never when they are in.
The remaining ten feet of the pen should be used for nest boxes, which can be fifteen inches square and one foot high. A board four inches wide may be fastened in front to prevent the nest material from being drawn out. This latter may be composed of finely cut hay or chaff. This must be perfectly dry, as the duck while laying will work it all over and cover her eggs carefully, which as they are pure white, become easily soiled and stained; this will necessitate washing unless things are kept dry and clean. This is a vital point with us, as it never did seem as if a filthy egg would hatch as well as a clean one. I abominate a machine filled with filthy eggs; it actually hurts my feelings to handle them. These nests should be covered closely and the partition above them be correspondingly high, as the birds will often mount upon the boxes. The back of the nest boxes next the walk should be closed with a board hinged below so that the attendant can let it down readily and secure the eggs from the walk.
The Room for Mixing Feed.
Some twelve feet of this breeding-house may be utilized as a cook and mixing room, and must necessarily be a little higher posted than the rest of the building,—say, two feet higher. This cookroom, with boiler, is an essential thing in a duck-house. Unlike hens, they do not take kindly to hard food and whole grain. Their digestive organs, in many points, are different from the hens, and they do not assimilate hard food readily. They require more vegetable food, and those vegetables must be cooked,—but more about this hereafter.
Of course, this building should be sweet and clean, and must be well deodorized; for, though ducks do not generate vermin like other fowl, and are not subject to as many diseases, or as readily affected by thermal changes,—in fact, a good driving rainstorm is their delight,—yet they will not thrive when confined in filthy quarters. It engenders a morbid appetite, impairs digestion, and your bird is poor before you know it. This, of course, arrests the egg production at once.
I wish here to impress upon the breeder the absolute necessity of the careful handling and feeding of his birds; and, when necessary, handle very gently, always taking the bird by the neck. This is very essential, because the bones of a well-bred, well-fatted duck seem wholly disproportioned to the size and weight of his body, and we have often seen a wing broken or a leg disjointed by the convulsive efforts of the bird to escape when caught by those members through the carelessness of the attendant.