DOMESTICATING WILD GAME
The country would be a more attractive place to live in if there were more wild game. Thirty years ago, when I was a little girl in the middle West, my brothers used to shoot "prairie chickens" (grouse), quail (bob-white), wild geese, brant, wild ducks, and even bigger birds. But now the guns are all rusty, and the powder flask is empty. I came across the old wad-cutter in the attic and hardly recognized it.
Efforts are being made in several states to rear wild fowl in the barn yard. Bob-white, grouse, mallard, wood ducks, and Canada geese are being experimented upon. A measure of success has already been achieved, but more experience is necessary especially with regard to the feeding of the young birds.
A wood duck will nest in a box like this
Probably the wild fowl for young hunters to experiment with is wood duck or mallard. A man whose ten years' experience with raising wild fowl has earned him the title of expert, writes as follows: "I think it would be a most useful work to educate our young people up to the fact that with a little patience and a small outlay they can help to increase our supply of wild birds. For raising wood ducks, all one needs is a small pond or even an artificial tank surrounded by a few bushes enclosed by a wire fence. In one corner, place a box on a post three feet high with a cleated boardwalk leading up to a platform from which they can reach the entrance, which should be a round hole. Turn a pair of wood ducks into the enclosure the first of March, and with luck your duck will build her nest, and lay from eight to twelve eggs. In about four weeks the eggs will hatch and the troubles commence."
He goes on to say that some kinds of wild geese are comparatively easy to raise and that they do not require much of a pond, but ample grazing facilities, like their domestic relatives. Mallards, also, are very easy to raise.
As wild fowl bred in captivity bring a very good price and the demand is increasing with the spreading interest in the subject, raising wild fowl might be a source of income to an enterprising young man or woman.
All spring shooting of wild fowls ought to stop. Don't say, "If I don't shoot them, somebody else will." That is not the attitude of a good sportsman. Public opinion among boys can only be established by boys. If you don't believe in hunting in spring, when the ducks are laying or brooding the young, you can not only stop doing it, but you can influence others. Will you do this? To kill one mother duck this year means eight or ten less next year. It is a plain example in arithmetic to see what a big blunder you make if you shoot in spring.