WATERFOWL 235 



to build on. In selecting birds for breeding I would 

 choose preferably birds that only weigh from six to 

 seven pounds apiece alive, and mate them carefully 

 with medium-sized drakes. We used to mate five 

 ducks to one drake, but now I should like to mate up 

 in single pens one drake with five, six or seven females. 

 We feed them lightly until November, when we 

 generally mate them. We try not to force them this 

 year, thinking that it destroys the vitality of the birds 

 and the fertility of, the eggs, and so we feed what we 

 call "harmless food" — largely clover, perhaps one part 

 clover and three parts bran and two parts corn meal, 

 and no beef scraps. It is not the question how many 

 eggs they lay, but what we get out of them. As a rule 

 we get less than loo eggs rather than over. I think 

 that ninety is nearer what we really get. Now if we 

 get only ninety, it is a great point to get ninety good 

 eggs, rather than so many poor ones. By forcing we 

 destroy the fertility, yet the eggs are quite profitable 

 if it does not take too much out of the breeding stock 

 to get them. I would prefer not to have them begin 

 to lay before some time in February. The first few 

 eggs laid will not be very valuable, they are almost 

 always infertile; perhaps the first two or three eggs 

 from each breeder, and the first machinefuls do not 

 average more than forty per cent fertile. If you hatch 

 twenty-five per cent of them it will be doing well. If 

 you try the eggs you will see that thirty-five or forty 

 per cent comes nearer the average. After starting to 

 hatch with hens and machines you will probably find 

 that you average more with hens than machines, but 

 if you average in either case fifty per cent you will 

 be doing well, and even forty per cent will be doing 

 fairly well. From the forty per cent you will naturally 

 expect to raise eighty-five to ninety per cent of the 

 ducklings, and that is all that you can expect, and 



