RANKIN'S DUCK BOOK 



markets personally and tease the dealers to purchase my birds 

 in order to secure anything like satisfactory prices. Later on, 

 that it will be sure to hatch a healthy young bird, bound to 

 live under all circumstances. But this is not all the danger. 

 The operator, though he may have good eggs, may be neg- 

 lectful or ignorant, and the health of the young birds seriously 

 injured during the hours of incubation; or he may have a 

 defective machine which under no condition can turn out 

 healthy birds. With healthy, vigorous parent stock, judicious 

 care and food, there is no reason why good hatches of strong, 

 healthy young birds may not be obtained and the same 

 matured with very little loss. 



Since the last edition of our Duck Culture reached the 

 public, there have been wonderful changes in the duck indus- 

 try ajid those changes have all been in favor of the growers' 

 profits. At that time the high price of labor together with 

 its unsatisfactory nature, the ridiculously low price the duck- 

 lings commanded during those summer months while poultry 

 lovers were scattered along the seashore or patronizing the 

 mountain hotels in the interior, made it extremely doubtful 

 to the duck grower where his profits came in, but now, all 

 this has been changed and in his favor. I do not mean in 

 the methods of feeding or the extreme care necessary to 

 facilitate the health and growth of the young birds, or of the 

 ingredients composing the food at the different stages of 

 growth but by the use of new and improved machinery, reduc- 

 ing the labor at least one half by the introduction of the gaso- 

 line engine, the patent mixer, the pneumatic tank, systematic 

 piping and last but not least the Mammoth Incubator of 

 from five thousand to twenty thousand egg capacity which has 

 not only reduced the expense of incubating the eggs by more 

 than one half but has practically eliminated all danger from 

 fire. The effect of all this enables the grower to nearly dou- 

 ble the amount of his product without materially increasing 

 his expense. For instance, many of these large duck plants 

 are feeding from one hundred to three hundred bushels of 

 food per day. Think of man with shovels and a trough, 

 mixing all this with water to the consistency required. Ten 

 minutes with the mixer would supercede many hours of labor 

 with the shovel. 



In days of yore, one man was required to do the watering 

 while another did the feeding; now, by simply turning a 

 faucet, fifty pens of ducklings are water instantaneously. 



Tramways are arranged so that food can be run the whole 

 length of a 300 ft. building in cold weather and outside on 

 days when the birds are fed out of doors in warm weather. 



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