ARTIFICIAL INCUBATING AND BROODING 



One measure of stale bread crumbs or cracker crumbs; 



One measure of white middlings or pollard; 



One-half measure of fine bran; 



Five per cent of sand. 



Wet this with skim milk or water, using only enough to 

 stick it together. Feed four times a day. Scatter it on fiat 

 boards, made say one foot by three with an inch strip around 

 the edge. Give them twenty minutes during which to eat; th^n 

 remove the board. 



Keep water before them at all times day and night, but in 

 the nursery always have the chill taken off. Wash the drink- 

 ing receptacles at each feeding, and if for any reason their 

 pans have been allowed to become empty be sure to give them 

 their food before placing water before them, especially at the 

 first morning feed or colic may result, which is often fatal. 



Four measures of fine bran; 



Three measures of white middlings (pollard); 



One measure of corn meal (maize); 



Three measures of fresh cut green clover or rye or two of 

 steamed clover meal; 



Five per cent (of the grain feed) of sand; 



Five per cent (of the grain feed) of beef scraps. 



I prefer to keep water constantly before them, although 

 they can worry along without it except at feeding time. 



This ration will not fatten; it is not intended that it should, 

 for to feed any more corn meal at this time would starve the 

 bone, muscle and feather growth and they would soon be crawl- 

 ing on their bellies broken down or throw their heads back and 

 fall in a fit, which usually ends fatally and is the sinre result of 

 feeding a too highly carbonaceous or fattening and heating 



70— WATER FOWL AT THE LONDON DAIRY SHOW 



They will scatter considerable water on the bedding around the 

 drinking fountains and will also drop particles of food on it; 

 this soon becomes sour and the wet portion should be renewed 

 every day, otherwise they dig in it and eat it to their injury. 



GROWING DUCKLINGS 



At the end of ten days they are transferred from the nur- 

 sery to the brooding house proper. Here they are given more 

 room and also outside runs to exercise and sun themselves in, 

 but where both sun and shade are found. We now aim to grow- 

 all the frame and muscle possible until they are seven weeks old, 

 and we feed them four times a day until they are five weeks 

 old, and then three times a day the following, mixed as before: 



ration. There is plenty of time to fatten them after the frame 

 is grown, which at seven weeks old, has been sufficiently accom- 

 plished to permit it. When they reach this age we select the 

 most precocious and promising ones for the next season's breed- 

 ers and turn the others into the fattening sheds. 



FATTENING DUCKLINGS 



In these sheds are fed three times a day on the following 

 mixed as before: 



Two measures of corn meal (maize meal) ; 

 Two measures of white middlings (pollard); ' 

 One measure of bran; 

 One measure of cut green clover or rye; 



94 



