24 LL55ON5 IN POULTRY KLLPING SLCOND SERIL5. 



LE5SON III. 



flarket Duck Culture, 



Introductory. 



IN this lesson we consider duck culture almost exclusively as it pertains to a single breeo 01 

 ducks, the White Pekin, which so far Mirpas>es all others in popularity, that market duck 

 culture in this country is White Pekin duck culture. In our fowls we have in each class 

 a number of varieties, and also have several cla.-ses which are either adapted to the same 

 uses, or could without much difficulty be made so; but in ducks we have nothing else that 

 would take the place of th'e Pekin. 



Anotoer peculiarity of modern market duck culture is that it is devoted exclusively to the 

 production of < green " ducks, that is, of ducklings to be marketed at ten to twelve weeks of 

 stge. At that age the ducklings have frames almost as large as when full grown, and will dress 

 four to six pounds each, five pounds being about the average weight. Much of this weight is 

 fat, and the proportion of edible meat on a duckling at this age is much smaller than on one of 

 the same weight at four or five months of age, but the profit in duck culture is all in the green 

 <lucks, and the duck specialists devote themselves to it exclusively. The older ducks which 

 come to market are mostly from the west and south, grown in small lots on farms, generally 

 under conditions which do not fit them for the green duck trade. 



Pekin ducks are much easier to h-indle in large numbers and in limited quarters than chick- 

 ens. They grow so much faster that the brooding problem is greatly simplified, and if con- 

 ditions are at all favorable, and care anywhere near right, they are very free from disease. 

 The common ducks do not grow anything like as fast as the Pekins. Some of the other pure 

 bred varieties may equal the Pekins in growth, and at intervals someone interested in another 

 variety endeavors to start a boom for it, but so far the results have not been flattering. What 

 temporary enthusiasm may be developed does not extend far, and soon dies out. Since the 

 introduction of the Pekin duck no large grower has taken up any other variety, and, I believe, 

 no large sin-cess hits ever been> made with any other duck. 



The breeding of Pekin ducks for show and sale for stock purposes receives little attention at 

 present. In the early days of their popularity, when there was a very lively boom in duck 

 culture, poultrymen who went into ducks carried on the duck business on much the same lines 

 as their other poultry business. Some few continue to do so. But the more successful growers 

 of ducks for market generally abandoned the other branches of the business, finding it more 

 .satisfactory and more profitable to devote all their time to market ducks. Those who continue 

 to advertise and sell exhibition and breeding stock and eggs for hatching are mostly poultry- 

 men who handle other fowls also. 



For those who succeed in it, duck growing is probably the most profitable line of poultry 

 culture, but the field is more limited than the trade in eggs or in broilers, roasters, or fowls. 

 For this there are several reasons. Duck growing on a large scale is a very new industry. It 

 was not until the Pekiu duck appeared that tame ducks began in this country to be considered 



