Goodacre's Ducks at Home 

 DUCKS AND THEIR VARIETIES 



In the springtime of the year in the-East the big duck ranches 

 hatch ducks by the hundreds of thousands, but in California, or 

 at least in the neighborhood of Los Angeles, there are not such 

 large ranches, and ducks do not seem as popular. Probably some 

 farmers have had a few in their yard at some \time, just to give 

 them a trial, and have found them a continual nuisance, as they 

 greedily eat the whole allowance of food from expectant chickens 

 and dabble in their drinking vessels, so they have to x ^e continually 

 cleaned and replenished, and with great injustice to the ducks, they 

 have let this prejudice them, where if they had kept the ducks 

 separate, they would have found them easier to raise than chickens. 



Ducks grow faster and are ready for the market earlier than 

 chickens ; they are not troubled by the diseases of hens, neither do 

 they have lice, except if raised under a hen when very young, be- 

 fore the feathers grow, the gray head-lice may get on their heads, 

 crawl into their ears and kill them, but this is before they feather 

 out. Mosquitoes which are very troublesome in some places to the 

 chickens, causing great mortality, never trouble ducks, neither do 

 fleas or ticks. I think the reason for their immunity from vermin 

 is that their feathers are very oily and thick and the down under the 

 feathers is an extra protection. Hens require a dust bath, while 

 ducks require a water bath to keep them clean and healthy. 



Most of the popular varieties of ducks can be raised and bred 

 without water to swim in, but on the very large duck ranches a 



