216 POULTRY FOR PROFIT 



like a jacket. Runner ducklings make very good 

 broilers, dressing very plump and meaty at from 

 two and one-half to three pounds each at six weeks 

 of age. 



Raising Baby Ducks. 



Ducklings are far more easily raised than chicks. 

 They require less heat and less hovering, are not 

 troubled by lice nor subject to the diseases which 

 beset chicks, and with just a little attention and 

 heat will raise themselves. Many persons raise them 

 in small numbers with hen mothers, but they are 

 liable to be trampled to death by hens and do so 

 well in fireless brooders that it is not at all neces- 

 sary to use hens or heated brooders unless the 

 weather is cold. 



The ducklings should be left in the nest two days 

 after they are hatched. They will not eat if they 

 are offered food and they require warmth and quiet 

 these two days. When they begin to try to climb 

 out of the nest, about the morning of the third day, 

 they may be taken from the hen and placed in a 

 fireless brooder in a coop similar to that used 

 for hen and chicks, with a wire run in front. When 

 they are two weeks old they may be given range or 

 put in a larger pen. 



The first few days they can be let out in the 

 middle of the day, but should be put back in the 

 brooder as it begins to grow cool toward night. A 

 friend of mine who is very successful with Indian 

 Runners gives them at first a "jug-mother." This 

 is a jug of hot water, wrapped in flannel, which 

 stands in their coop or in the run in front of it 

 where the ducklings can easily run to it if they feel 

 chilly, and they soon learn where to go to warm 

 up. At night this is placed in their brooder box 



