154 OUR DOMESTIC BIRDS 



for storage. Large quantities of ice are needed to cool the 

 dressed ducks before shipping them to market, so the farm 

 must have its own ice houses and store its own supply of ice in 

 the winter. For some years after duck farms grew to such large 

 proportions, the mixing of mash was all done by hand, with 

 shovels. Often one man was kept busy all day long mixing 

 mash, and very hard work it was. Now the men on the large 

 farms mix the food in big dough mixers, such as are used by 

 bakers, and work that would take a man an hour is done in a 

 few minutes. 



In some sections the killing and dressing of the ducks is done 

 by men with whom duck picking is a trade at which they work 

 during its season. In others the killing is done by men, but the 

 pickers are women living in the vicinity of the farm, who can 

 be secured for this work whenever they are needed. A farm 

 that markets 50,000 ducks in a season will keep a large force of 

 pickers busy the greater part of the time for many months. 

 Quite a large building is required to provide room for the pickers 

 to work in, for tanks for cooling 500 or more ducks at once, for 

 space for the men who pack them, and for lofts for drying the 

 feathers before they are sold. This drying process must be used 

 whether the birds are dry-picked or are scalded before the feathers 

 are removed. Water on feathers dries quickly, but the oil in 

 the quills dries very slowly. The feathers from one duck are 

 worth only a few cents, and where small numbers are grown the 

 feathers are hardly worth the trouble of saving and curing. On 

 a large plant the total product of feathers for a season amounts 

 to several thousand dollars, and it pays to provide facilities for 

 taking proper care of them. 



After the crop of ducks on an inland farm is marketed, the 

 fences must be removed and the land plowed and sowed with 

 winter rye. This crop is used extensively for this purpose, be- 

 cause it is a gross feeder and takes the impurities from the soil 

 very fast, and also furnishes a good supply of green food for 



