HATCHING AND BROODING OF DUCKS 



two quarts each time and open up the room in about a half 

 hour. During the last two weeks of the hatch we also sprinkle 

 the eggs; otherwise the shells have a dry, feverish, brittle feeling, 

 and the ducklings cannot seem to break through them. ,The 

 skin is tough and leathery and in many cases the inner wrapping 

 dries and mummifies the birds. 



We find that a comfortably heated brooder house is of more 

 importance than to have their Uttle brooder at any exact tem- 

 perature. This latter must, of course, be comfortably warm; but 

 lots of bother and loss have been saved us of late by a good 

 stove running steadily all the time. When the ducklings run 

 out of their warm bedroom to feed or drink, they are chilled or 

 troubled with rheumatism or cramps. Again we do not hurry 

 them out of the incubator, but let them get well dried off and 

 when we do change them to the brooder, for the first twenty- 

 four hours we place only water and sand before them. Their 

 water is tepid and the food is — well, sometimes one thing, some- 

 times another. Just now they are getting bread crumbs soaked 

 in milk and dried to crumbly consistency with com meal and 

 wheat bran. After they are a week old we give them either a 



little fine chopped, hard boiled egg, or well soaked beef scraps. 

 We put before them only what they will eat up clean and after 

 the first two weeks feed four times a day until marketed. 



For the second month their ration is one-third corn meal, 

 one-third wheat bran, one-third ground oats and gradually 

 work up from one-fifteenth of beef scraps to one-tenth, which 

 continue until marketed. To the above we add one-fourth in 

 bulk of fine cut green stuff, preferably clover. During the third 

 month the proportion of corn meal is gradually increased until 

 it is about three-fifths to three-fourths of the food given. We 

 also shorten up their yards. 



When raising ducks on a small plant it is a good plan — 

 when the ducks are being prepared for market — to have the 

 coarse feathers (of wings and tail) kept apart and the fine 

 feathers and down picked together and spread in a clean, airy 

 place to cure, which takes about a month. These feathers may 

 be sold to the local trade at from 60 to 75 cents per pound; 

 five ducks usually yield about one pound. They may also be 

 made into sofa pillows and a little advertising of this is all that 

 is necessary. 



FEEDING FOR MARKET OR BREEDERS 



FEEDING NURSERY DUCKLINGS— FATTENING THE DUCKLINGS— FEEDING STOCK 

 DUCKS-FEEDING THE BREEDERS— HINTS IN REGARD TO FEEDING FOR EGGS 



H. E. MOSS 



IHE duck farmers of this country who conduct the 

 business on a commercial scale are, so far as feed- 

 ing methods are concerned, far in advance of 

 those engaged in any other branch of the poultry 

 business. They have reduced the feeding ques- 

 tion to what may be called a certainty if not a 

 science. They have every branch of it from start 

 to finish under perfect control and while but few 

 of them perhaps would undertake to demonstrate what consti- 

 tutes successful feeding from a scientific viewpoint, or even 

 imdertake to figure the nutritive value of the different feeds, 

 they never-the-less know exactly what to use and what results 

 will follow as well as if they had worked it out scientifically; 

 they have been through the severe school of experience. 



The writer enjoys the personal acquaintance of nearly 

 every one of these men, and has visited practically every large 

 farm in this country, and knows what has been accomplished. 

 They do not all feed exactly alike, so far as the materials used 

 are concerned, and it will be found that the best results are 

 obtained by those who approach, either intentionally or other- 

 wise the correct nutritive ratio, the secret of successful duck 

 feeding. 



I admit that ducks will eat almost anything, and that 

 after they are ten days or two weeks old they will not only 

 eat, but manage to live and grow to maturity although thrown 

 almost entirely upon their own resources, if given a chance to 

 rustle. But this would not answer our purpose. We must de- 

 vise a system of feeding that will produce the most rapid growth 

 and greatest weight in the shortest time. The food must be 

 composed of material demanded by the nature and constitution 

 of the duck, and easily digestible; otherwise it will not only be 

 wasted, but may injure or kill the ducklings, which it will if 

 it steps too far out of the narrow path wherein safety Hes. 

 Forcing their growth on a concentrated feed is an entirely dif- 

 ferent proposition from their natural, slower growth on mate- 

 rial of their own selection. 



FEEDING NURSERY DUCKLINGS 



The critical period in a duckling's life is during the first ten 

 days of its existence. The handling and care during this per- 



iod determines whether or not they go to market at a profit 



When they are hatched the yolk which has just been taken 

 into the abdominal cavity contains sufficient nourishment to 

 sustain them thirty-six hours or more. They should be taken 

 from the incubator thirty-six hours after the hatch is over, 

 which if properly conducted will be -the evening of the twenty- 

 ninth day, as they should be practically all out of the shells on 

 the morning of the twenty-eighth day. They should then as 

 they are transferred to the brooder (and this applies to chicks 

 as well) be taken one at a time and their bill dipped in blood 

 warm water, if they get only a drop it will be found that this 

 will prove the means of saving many that. would otherwise suf- 

 fer and perhaps to a degree that would later on prove fatal; 

 for one drop of water at this time will so aid the assimilation of 

 the yolk that must, take place, or should before any food is 

 taken, that many deaths from unabsorbed yolk will be pre- 

 vented. This takes time, but it pays to do it. 



Of course ducklings quickly find the water, but there are 

 always a few that do not until it is perhaps too late to save 

 them. Both ducks and chicks when hatched can wait seventy- 

 two hours before taking food and I believe to their advantage, 

 but they must not be deprived of water. 



The first feed should consist of stale bread crumbs soaked 

 in skim milk and squeezed dry with the least bit of fine sand 

 sprinkled over it. This should be kept constantly before them 

 day and night for the first forty-eight or sixty hours, renewing 

 it every three hours. This has the effect of thoroughly cleans- 

 ing the entire digestive tract of all acid and urate accumula- 

 tions and fitting them for the rapid and active work they must 

 now take up, for without a ravenous appetite and perfect diges- 

 tion they cannot reach the stage we desire. I shall not go into 

 the details of brooding houses and temperature here, but con- 

 fine myself to feeding alone. I will assume the reader has 

 these details correctly and firmly fixed in his mind and is prac- 

 ticing them. 



The next ten days that now follow are the important ones, 

 so far as temperature and food are concerned and those that 

 safely survive this period are not only safe, but far more hardy 

 than chicks at the same age. 



Their feed during this period should consist of: 



93 



