Feeding and Fattening Ducks 



Special Features of Feeding Practice Due to Aquatic Habits of Ducks and to Their Remarkable Adaptability to 

 Forced Feeding Rations Used By Pioneer and Leading Commerical Duck Growers Rate of 

 Growth of Ducks Feeding Young Ducks Designed for Breeders for Development 

 and Breeding Stock for Egg Production 



DUCK culture in America is principally the grow : ng 

 of ducks to be sold for the table at about ten 

 weeks of age. There are few breeders of stand- 

 ard ducks for exhibition. Perhaps one farmer in ten 

 keeps a few indifferently bred ducks with other poultry, 

 and feeds them the same way, except as the ducks make 

 their ration different by the things they get in foraging. 

 Occasionally a poultry keeper with a preference for ducks 

 keeps quite a large flock of them and sells the eggs for 

 table use. In general, those who keep just a few ducks 

 get poor results from them because they do not realize 

 that a system of feeding which would be ruinous to any 

 other kind of poultry is what is required to get the best 

 a duck is capable of doing. 



In all discussions of the making and use of moist 

 mashes for land birds, emphasis is placed, over and over, 

 on the importance of avoiding sloppy feed, and the neces- 

 sity for using hard grain in larger proportions than the 

 soft feeds given, if the birds are to be kept in good physi- 

 cal condition for any length of time. In expert feeding of 

 ducks, hard grain is not used at all for the young birds 

 while growing, and the breeding stock is given only a 

 light feed of grain once a day. All the rest of the feed 

 is in the form of mash, and the wet mash is used almost 

 exclusively, because the conditions under which the birds 

 aie fed and the method of feeding do not admit of giving 

 the ground feeds in the dry state. Ducks can be raised 

 on dry feed, and will do well with it, but as they want 

 a great deal of water to wash a moist mash down when 

 eating it, there is no object in giving it dry. 



Moist mashes as prepared for ducks, are usually 

 mixed about as dry as a moist mash can be, but the ad- 

 vantage of this is in the handling of the mash in distribut- 

 ing it, and in the fact that the feeding troughs keep mucli 

 cleaner if the mash is so dry that it will not stick to them. 

 Frequently poultry keepers raising a few ducks make the 

 mashes for them very thin and sloppy about like the 

 feed used for chickens in crate feeding and the ducks 

 seem to thrive as well on them as on anything. 



In feeding ducks, water must always be accessible to 

 them while eating, for unless supplied with water to wash 

 down the feed they eat only sparingly not enough for 

 good growth or egg production. The feed trough and 

 the pail or trough of water should not be so close to- 

 gether that the birds can easily reach from one to the 

 other, as under such conditions they slop badly and waste 

 a great deal of feed. But if the water is just far enough 

 fiom the feed so that the bird cannot turn to it with a 

 mouthful of feed and swill the -feed in the water it will 

 partly swallow the feed, or swallow as much as it can, 

 before going for a drink. Then when it goes back to the 

 feed the drip from its bill falls near the water vessel and 

 not in the feed as it will if the feed and water are too 

 close together. With small flocks of ducks the slopping 

 and waste from having feed and water too close together 

 are insignificant, but when there are fifty or more duck- 

 lings in a flock, or ten or twelve breeding ducks, the waste 

 becomes important and the work of keeping feed and 

 water receptacles and the floors about them clean is 

 much increased. 



SIX PHOTOGRAPHS SHOWING THE RATE OF GROWTH OP DUCKLINGS 



98 



