POULTRY KEEPING 197 



duck eggs to use in their business, but when we consider that bakers 

 and restaurants are in the habit of using- cold storage eggs and 

 Chinese eggs, it does not look very promising for a bigger price for 

 duck eggs from that source. The profit from ducks is made, not 

 from the eggs, but from the green ducks sold for table purposes, or in 

 keeping stock breeders and selling eggs for hatching. In a rainy 

 locality, during the winter and early spring months you would have 

 to keep a good bed of straw for nests or the eggs would get almost 

 too dirty for sale as food. Duck eggs, like hen eggs, absorb any bad 

 odor that may be near them, and a duck is not cleanly in its habits 

 unless you force it to be so. 



Laying Feed for Ducks. 



What is the proper feed for ducks to make them lay; also what 

 quantity for fourteen ducks? Have been feeding barley and bran, and 

 barley alone. They have a free range of grass and running water. 



The proper feed for ducks is a balanced mash and a little hard 

 grain at night. They will not do their best unless they have it. 

 Barley alone is a very poor ration; barley and bran is but little better. 

 The mash should include the following ingredients and what you 

 do not have or cannot get handy of course you will have to do with- 

 out or substitute something else. Bran, two parts; middlings, one 

 part; coarse ground corn-meal, one part; beef scrap, two parts; bone 

 meal, half a part; ground barley, two parts. Mix this all together by 

 measure and you have a mash that can't be beaten for laying ducks. 

 A little corn, wheat or oats, or even barley, for the night meal will 

 last them longer. Ducks that have range will regulate their grit 

 and water themselves, but they will lay more eggs if some form of 

 shell material is kept handy. Do not feed a bit more than they will 

 clean up at one time. When you have gauged the quantity once, you 

 will know how much to mix for the next time. It is a mistake to 

 try to stint ducks to just so much; they want "heap bellyful," and 

 if you don't give it to them they won't give you the eggs. 



Ducks Died After Pipping. 



My duck eggs pipped on the tivcnty-fourth day and died in the shell. 

 After the eggs began to pip, how long before they should be out? 



The heat has been too high. The ducklings should not have 

 pipped until the 26th day at least and the 27th would have been better. 

 Run the incubator at 101 the first week, 102 the second and third, and 

 gradually bring 1 it up to 103. If it runs up to 104 during the third, and 

 it will not hurt, but do not allow this during the first week of incu- 

 bation. After they pip, if the heat has been right, all should be out 

 in twelve hours, but sometimes ducklings have to be helped out, if the 

 shell has not been rotted with moisture. 



