DUCK FARMING. 269 



localities, and largely by the use of incubators, whilst the 

 Aylesbury rearers adhere too much to old-fashioned 

 methods. A very usual method is to push them on well 

 for about seven weeks on a proper mixture of meals, 

 granulated meat, and green food, keeping them out of the 

 water, and at about that age to put them up for sixteen or 

 twenty days of fattening, during which time locust-bean 

 meal, fat, and the intestines of animals minced up are added 

 to the food. They should then be ready for killing, and if 

 kept on much beyond this point generally begin to moult 

 and lose weight. They have to be kept carefully out of 

 both rain and sun, generally in sheds about 12 feet square, 

 with an outer yard, which may accommodate about 150 

 birds. The greatest profit is of course realised in those got 

 to market along with green peas. 



In America duck-marketing is carried on chiefly by very 

 large establishments or duck-farms, provided with large 

 "brooder houses," mostly long gable buildings with a 

 passage up centre, and rows of pens about ten feet square 

 on each side, which are heated by hot-water pipes. The 

 favourite breed is the Pekin, which in America appears to 

 compare better in size with our own large breeds. Mr. 

 Hallock's celebrated Atlantic Farm on Long Island * has 

 carried on duck-raising for forty years, lately averaging 

 15,000 birds marketed per annum ; and one couple of Pekins 

 weighed every week in 1897 weighed at ten weeks 8 lb. 

 each, which far surpasses any English result. At a certain 

 age the birds are taken from warmed brooder-pens which 

 have no outer yards, to cold pens which have outer yards 

 but no pond. Their meal is constantly mixed with a 

 portion of sand, cut green food, and chopped meat, the 

 meal portion consisting of maize meal, bran, an.d coarse 



* We gather these particulars from The Feather (U.S.) 



