270 PROFITS IN POULTRY. 
Ducks are fed nearly the same as chickens, except 
that they need rather more animal food as they increase 
in size. They should be carefully guarded from rain 
for the first fortnight. They should also be yarded 
while young, for if allowed free range, they greedily 
devour all manner of insects, which they do not stop to 
kill, and too often pay the penalty with their lives. 
Boiled potatoes and vegetables should be fed freely, at 
least once a day, to young ducks, which should have 
four meals each day until five weeks old. Cracked corn 
and refuse wheat may be kept by them, but while fatten- 
ing they should have all the soft food they can eat at 
least three times a day. Ducks should be marketed at 
nine or ten weeks old, as soon after that the pin feathers 
begin to grow and they are off condition and soon be- 
come poor, while it is an immense job to pick them. If 
not marketed at the time above mentioned, they will 
not be in condition again till after they are four months 
old. Pekin ducks at nine weeks old, if well fed, will 
dress from eight to.eleven pounds per pair. 
PACKING AND SHIPPING. 
In packing poultry, assort them carefully, putting the 
large ones, also the small ones and any old. bulls or cocks, 
each by themselves, and mark the number in the pack- 
age. During Thanksgiving week, large fancy turkeys, 
weighing from twelve to fifteen pounds each, generally 
command the best prices of the year. The market is 
then usually filled with “fair to poor” stock, which 
goes at low figures; but even ten-pound turkeys, fat and 
well dressed, bring good prices, unless, as is sometimes 
the case, warm, rainy weather demoralizes the market. 
Make your packages as uniform as possible. Nice boxes 
of regular dimensions are much better than irregular 
ones. Wesubjoin a cut giving best sizes used for tur- 
keys and chickens, and showing style of packing gener- 
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