106 California Poultry Practice 



won't mind the price. With either food, warm water and a nice 

 warm brooder, ducklings are in clover, and will grow like weeds. 



The next best thing for a few days is rolled oats and stale bread 

 soaked in milk. At two weeks old, you can change them gradually 

 to a mash ,as follows. 



Bran, one part; middlings, one part; corn meal, two parts; five per 

 cent beef scrap, a little coarse sand and as much chopped lettuce as 

 they will eat; mix the mash with just enough water to mix readily, 

 adding some of the chopped lettuce, and feed lettuce between meals. 

 Sprouted oats may be fed at any and all times, and they will cer- 

 tainly grow. As they increase in age, so also must you increase the 

 animal food. Ten or even fifteen per cent animal food of some kind 

 must be fed if they are to be sold as green ducks at ten or twelve 

 weeks old. 



Five Meals a Day. — At all the large duck ranches on Long Island, 

 all feeders are out with the first meal of the day at six o'clock in the 

 morning, and the ducks and ducklings both are fed as regular as the 

 clock, five meals a day, all they. can eat of a properly balanced food. 

 That is the secret of their success, regularity and a well balanced 

 food. I have seen people trying to raise ducks, who actually did 

 not know the nature of ducks or their needs. Such people fail in 

 the nature of things, but how much better it would be to learn the 

 needs of ducks first, then raise them afterwards. 



A Good Finishing Mash For Ducks. — About two weeks before 

 the ducks are to be killed, the green feed should be omitted, as it 

 injures the color of the flesh. The following mash can be relied 

 upon to give good results both in quality and quantity of meat. 



Corn meal, or ground corn 2 parts; ground oats 1 part; ground 

 barley, one part; white middlings or low grade flour, 2 parts; beef 

 scrap, 1 part. Now in measuring parts, the same measure should be 

 used all the time; to 1 quart of ground oats, barley and beef scrap 

 each, you add 2 quarts of corn meal and 2 of middlings or flour. Thus, 

 in this mash, the beef scrap is one part in seven; this is rich food, 

 but is only to be fed as a finishing food and only three times a day; 

 if fed too often on such diet, the ducks would surfeit. 



After ducks quit laying in the summer, give this mash two weeks 

 before a Jewish holiday and send them to market. Duck raisers 

 should post themselves on the Jewish holidays and prepare to make 

 shipments for them, as they are in great demand during those times. 



Dressing Ducks For Market 



This is one feature in raising ducks on this Coast that is not much 

 used, because we sell nearly all live products alive. This saves a 

 lot of work that would be done by inexperienced hands and places 



