CHAPTER VII 



MANAGEMENT OF DUCKS 



Although ducks delight in the water and, when they have an 

 opportunity to do so, spend a considerable part of the time in it, 

 they are often kept very successfully where they have no water 

 except for drinking. Some duck breeders, who have kept their 

 ducks for many generations without water in which they could 

 swim, have said that the ducks lost all desire to swim, and that 

 birds of such stock would not go into the water even when they 

 had the opportunity to do so. This statement greatly exagger- 

 ates the facts. Any young duck, no matter how the stock from 

 which it came has been kept, will take to the water as soon as 

 it can run about if it is given access to water at that time ; but if 

 young ducks are kept away from the water until they are several 

 weeks old, and then given access to water in which they can 

 swim, they are often as much afraid of the water as they would 

 be of any object to which they were not accustomed. If they 

 remain near the water, however, it will not be long before they 

 follow their natural instinct to get into it. Having once entered 

 the water, they are immediately as much at home there as if 

 they had always known the pleasures of life in that element. 



As comparatively few people keep ducks, and specialization 

 in duck culture is mostly in the line of producing young ducks 

 for market, on a large scale, there is not as much variety in 

 methods of managing ducks as in methods of managing fowls. 

 If ducks are expected to do the best of which they are capable, 

 they must be given a great deal of attention. While no bird 

 will endure more neglect without appearing to suffer, there is 

 none that will respond to good care more generously. 



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