130 PROPAGATION OF WILD BIRDS 



deal of natural food, and he gives them only wheat and 

 cracked corn in addition. 



E. H. Austin, Gaylordsville, Connecticut, from October 

 and on, gives mixed grain or scratch-feed, sometimes with a 

 little dry beef -scrap mixed in. The ducks spend the day in 

 a brook and meadow area fenced off, and in winter are driven 

 up at night and shut in an ordinary poultry house. 



Forcing Foods for Laying. The following are some of the 

 feeding receipts for help to egg-production. Usually the 

 change of feeding is begun quite early in the spring, gener- 

 ally early March. Mashes should preferably be scalded and 

 left for about half an hour to swell, being mixed only crum- 

 bly moist. 



Mr. Austin's receipt is: shredded alfalfa, 6 quarts; ground 

 corn and oats, 2 quarts; beef -scrap (never any but best 

 grade), 2 quarts; a handful of linseed meal. He keeps this 

 before them all the time. 



The forcing-mash used by E. Aubry, poultryman of 

 Edmund C. Converse, Greenwich, Connecticut, is as follows: 

 Ground oats, 100 parts; bran, 50; cornmeal, 20; linseed meal 

 (old process), 20; gluten, 20; sifted beef -scrap, 25; alfalfa 

 meal, 25. Two or three times a week he puts in a little 

 cracked corn, at the rate of a handful for half a dozen ducks. 

 Unlike most breeders, he gives this mash practically the 

 year round, but in winter doubles the cornmeal to 40 parts, 

 reduces the ground oats half, to 50, and reduces the beef- 

 scrap to 15, in severe weather 20. Too much of the latter at 

 this season brings on liver troubles. He uses Swift's beef- 

 scrap. A. G. MacVicar does not use beef-scrap in winter 

 at all. The mash is given in the morning, and grain at 

 night, sometimes only cracked corn, especially in severe 

 weather. He also makes a practice of keeping always 

 before the ducks, in troughs on the shore under shelters, 



