The young ducks are fed for the first few weeks with a 

 special wild duck meal, which is supplied by the dealers in game 

 foods. When they procure many water-insects, bugs, worms, 

 small frogs and fish, they will not require to be fed more than 

 two or three times a day, and it always is desirable not to feed 

 either young ducks or pheasants too much. See that they are 

 eating all that is given to them, and that no food remains after 

 a meal to become stale and unwholesome. Modern breeders 

 keep their birds a little hungry and they get more exercise on 

 that account in their search for natural foods. 



The ducks which lend themselves most readily to hand- 

 rearing are the mallards, from which are descended our common 

 green-headed ducks of the barn yard, and the black ducks, 

 often popularly termed black mallards. These birds cross 

 readily and there are many ducks sold as black ducks which 

 have a visible admixture of mallard, but which is so slight 

 sometimes as to make it difficult for experts to be sure that the 

 birds are not thoroughbred. Since pheasants have interbred 

 and the hybrids are desirable from the sporting viewpoint, 

 there should not be much objection to black ducks even with 

 a visible admixture of mallard, provided the cross be from a 

 wild and not a barn-yard strain. The strong flight which 

 sport demands will not be produced often by barn-yard ducks. 

 Pure bred birds, of course, are desirable, and where only one 

 species is reared it should be an easy matter to keep the strain 

 pure. The mallards are more easy to hand-rear, and they 

 breed better in captivity than the black ducks and the mallard 

 cross is, therefore, considered desirable by some breeders. 



In England the pin-tails and the English teal, a bird somewhat 

 similar to but larger than our green-winged teal, are reared 

 with some success on preserves and game farms. In America 

 the wood-duck has been found easy to handle by those who 

 understand the bird's habit of nesting in holes in trees. These 

 birds also have been exported and many have been bred abroad, 

 so that we now get many of our wood-ducks from Belgium and 

 other countries where they did not occur until we furnished the 

 stock, a sad commentary on our intelligence. 



In some states the game breeders' laws only permit the profit- 

 able breeding of mallards and black ducks. This, of course, 



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