102 



SUCCESS WITH POULTR-Y 



Here there is no hover, but we have a stove that can be eas- 

 ily lighted and used during storms to keep the air dry and 

 prevent damp and ehill. A week or two later they are 

 "moved on" to the fattening sheds, which are constructed 

 with a special view to ventilation, and where they remain, 

 some sixty in each, with but little exercise till marketed. 



In our brooder house out-door yards we use V-shaped 

 tro-ughs for holding the drinking water, with slats across to 

 prevent the daeklings from fouling the water or getting wet. 

 Our other houses are provided with a continuous trough, 

 through which runs a stream of clear, soft river water day 

 and night, forced up through gas pipes by a hydraulic ram. 



Under the hovers of our brooder houses (also in the 

 "summer cottages") fine chapped straw is used for bedding. 

 But in the indoor and outside pens and yards, sand. In the 

 latter a crust of compost soon forma over it, which, when 

 dry, cakes. It is then easily removed with the help of a 

 fork, hoe and shovel. Fresh sand is then substituted; also, 

 the holes they so enjoy to make and "puddle iv-" are kept 

 level so, that the yards are dry after rains and no water is 

 left in spots wherein the ducks can get wet and chilled. 



Two and a half feet netting of two inch mesh is used 

 for all but the brooder house yards. 



Getting the Ducks Beady for Market. 



When ready for market we separate and drive into a 

 distant shed the number required, to fill our order. The bird 

 is caught, held firmly between the knees, the head is bent 

 over a block and it is stunned with a sharp blow on the 

 back of the neck at the base of the brain. In the mouth is 

 then inserted a long, thin -knife blade, which is then run up 

 into the brain and given a downward and backward twist, 

 which, if rightly done, cuts the jugular vein. The dead bird 

 Js bled freely and then plucked rapidly, while warm, the 

 coarse feathers first. 



If marketed at about ten weeks of age there are no 

 pin feathers on ducks, and they can be stripped quickly 

 and easily when once the "know how" is acquired, but 

 it is claimed that at four months old they are again 

 clean of them. A despairing correspondent recently asked, 

 ' ' Will you please tell me if there is 'any age when ducks 



don't grow pin feathers?" We have pioked ten weeks old 

 birds in seven minutes, and it 's taken one hour and fifteen 

 minutes to pick one about four months old. But, of course, 

 it takes longer, even if no pin feathers disfigure, for a seven 

 than a four-pound duck. 



Get the coarse feathers off first and second joint of 

 wings first, then the fine ones, the down can be rubbed 

 off with a damp thumb and forefinger. A knife helps ' ' catch 

 on " to stubborn short feathers. Place the bird on the knee, 

 breast up, and with one hand holding the flesh firmly in place 

 pluck with the other against the grain, first the feathers, 

 a few at a time, and then the down. The, thumb moistened 

 and a little twist given, cleans to the flesh without breaking. 

 When pin feathers grow too short to pull, scissors snip them 

 off closely and improve the looks. If the flesh is accident- 

 ally torn it should be sewed up with a fine thread. The 

 neck is cleaned half way up to the head. 



After the ducks aro picked, their mouths are carefully 

 washed out and their feet cleansed, then they are placed in 

 ice-cold water, which as changed in three or four hours. When 

 the animal heat is exhausted they are packed for shipment 

 in boxes between layers of straw, each bird in a n€st of 

 its own and separate. The box has air or gimlet holes, four 

 on each side and near the bottom. 



Here is a new formula of feed and was handed me re- 

 cently by a small, but successful raiser of ducks. She says: 

 "Bread and milk for the first few days; then one part In- 

 dian meal to two parts bran (beef scrap and sand added) 

 till within ten days of killing, when reverse the parts, three 

 of meal and one of bran. Three meals a day; a meadowy 

 field and a puddle and no board to cover them after the 

 "bread and milk age." What do you think! Didn't lose 

 one and they all went off at eleven weeks old at forty cents 

 per pound and twelve alid one-half pounds to the pair. 



This method, for a limited number of birds, seems the 

 simplest, easiest, most economical and most satisfactory one 

 that I know, if it works as she says. It is a contrast to the 

 artificial method, which, for obvious reasons, is adopted 

 where larger numbers of ducklings are raised. 



FEANGES B. WHEEI.EE. 



POULTRY AND FRUIT COMBINED 



Every Raiser of Poultry Should Consider the Matter of Growing Fruit in Connection Therewith 



— Plums and Poultry- Growing Plams. 



WE feel that we cannot urge too often or in too 

 strong terms the wisdom of combining fruit grow- 

 ing with poultry raising. The two go hand in 

 glove together, one greatly benefiting the other 

 and enabling the " proprietor to grow two profitable crops 

 on the same ground. 



On the editor's seven-acre farm the production of poul- 

 try and fruit is combined to splendid advantage. We have 

 at present some one hundred and seventy , apple, peach, 

 plum, cherry and pear trees, eighty of which have reached 

 the bearing age. We have a patch each of blackberries, 

 black raspberries, red raspberries and Golden Queen (yel- 

 low) raspberries. There is an acre vineyard and a straw- 

 berry bed 30x150 feet. This place was well set out to fruit 

 when we bought it in 1890, and we have added more each 

 year. In the spring of 1893 we set out seventy-six plum 

 peach and cherry trees. The young trees were two years 

 old when received from the nurserymen. Two years later 



the Abundance plum trees in this lot of seventy-six bore 

 quite good crops and last season, after being planted three 

 years, they bore heavily. Damson plum trees set out at the 

 same time have thus far borne only half a dozen plums. 

 These trees are of much slower growth. Some Shropshire 

 Damson plum trees set out in 1893 have borne light crops 

 the last two seasons, but the fruit, all of it, has rotted on 

 the trees both seasons before any of it ripened. They have 

 proved an utter failure in our hands. 



A dozen peach trees that were set out in 1893 bore heav- 

 ily this past season. All these trees were set out in the 

 12xl00-foot poultry runs, placed twenty feet apart, and the 

 branches now extend over the fences on either side. They 

 furnish an abundance of shade, for the fowls, while the fowls 

 reciprocate by fertilizing the soil and destroying bugs, slugs 

 and larvae. 



As a rule, the fowls will not eat fruit, not even when it 

 falls to the ground. Their appetites are soon cloyed. We 



