Making Home Profitable

by Kate V. Saint Maur

In dressing it is most desirable to dry pick. Although some still scald, dry-picked stock sells better than scalded, especially when the market is dull, for it can be frozen, while scalded stock cannot. For dry picking have a box for the feathers. It may be of any size you wish on the ground, and should be of such depth that the top edge is one or two inches lower than your knee when in a sitting position. To use for cooling the ducks, saw a coal-oil barrel in two; use one-half for cooling, the other half for clear water to put them in after washing.

To kill, catch the feet in the left hand, and the neck near the breast with the right hand, then with a swinging motion (the same as in using an axe), strike the back of the head against a post with sufficient force to start the blood from the ears. Now with a quick motion place the body under your left arm, catching the back of the head and the top of the bill in the left hand. Using a knife with a five-inch blade, make a cut crosswise at the base of the brain, then turn the edge to the roof of the mouth, and slash outward, being careful not to split the bill. Let the blood run for two seconds.

Sit down. Place your knees against the neck just tight enough to keep it in place. If too much pressure is put on, it will stop the flow of blood and give the flesh a red appearance. Hold the feet and wings in the left hand. Commence picking at the vent, then the breast and neck. The feathers are left on half the neck, and on the wings from the first joint out. Pick clean as you go, for once the duck gets cold, it will be hard to pick. Experts use a shoemaker’s knife ground thin, and strop it the same as a razor, to shave the pin and small feathers off.

After picking, put them into ice water or cold spring water until the animal heat is gone; then wash the feet, and wash all clots of blood from the mouth and throat; then put into another vessel of water, which takes all the stains off and gives a nice clean appearance. After they are clean you can put them into a barrel or box with crushed ice, and if left for twelve to twenty-four hours in this condition they can be shipped a long distance with but little ice. To make dressed ducks show up good it is necessary to take them out of clean water at the finish. The second vessel should have clean water put in as soon as it gets cloudy.

When packing for shipment, use flour or sugar barrels. Pack with back down, putting the head under the wing. Pack close, and leave a space on top for ice. Raise the top hoop, place burlap on top, drive the hoop on again, with the burlap under, and nail firmly. Before using, the barrel should be thoroughly washed. Bore two three-fourths-inch holes in the bottom, to drain.

A goose will lay from ten to twenty eggs and then want to sit; but if you coop her in sight of her companions, four or five days will suffice to break her up. If she lays a third clutch of eggs, let her keep them and sit.

When the weather is mild, set five eggs under a hen; or, if she is very large, seven might be risked. It takes from twenty-eight to thirty days for goose eggs to hatch. As the skin is very tough, it is well to sprinkle a little water around the nest, and even on the eggs themselves, during the last two weeks, especially if the weather is dry and hens are doing the incubating.

The youngsters need nothing for the first thirty-six hours. Then feed scalded corn-meal—the coarsest kind—and wheat bran, chopped green clover or young green oats cut fine, tops of green onions, lettuce leaves or any tender young greens.

If the weather is fine, put the coop containing Biddy and her family out on the grass, making a small yard in front for the first few days, to prevent their wandering too far away. Move the coop and yard to a new place as they eat the grass. Like young ducks, their drinking water must be in a vessel that permits them to put the whole beak into the water, or they are apt to get the air passages clogged up with soft food, causing the gosling to smother; but on no account must they be permitted to get their bodies into the water, as they chill and cramp so easily.

It is much better to buy two- or three-year-old birds from a reliable dealer for stock than obtain eggs for setting and wait for them to develop. After the breeding season is over, geese and goslings need little grain if on grass land. Late in the fall geese do well if turned into the corn stubble or the orchard, where they will clean up all the windfalls—which does much to stamp out grubs and insects.