RANKIN'S DUCK BOOK 



Cayuga cross was very satisfactory, with two exceptions. 

 They were fine, plump birds, took on fat readily, and matured 

 as early as the Pekins, while the mortality was not more than 

 one per cent, on either, but we found that the skin was dark, 

 the dark pins, when there were any, showing very plainly 

 beneath. 



These birds were sent to market in the same boxes with 

 the Pekins. Our dealers to whom we shipped allowed us 

 the same price for them as for the Pekins, as there were but 

 few of them, but had they all been of that color would have 

 been obliged to cut them two cents per pound on the price. 

 This was enough for me, especially as I found that the feathers 

 commanded but little more than half the price of the pure 

 white feathers of the Pekins. 



The experiment, though conducted in the same manner, 

 with the Rouens, was somewhat different in result. There 

 was a great loss from those mongrels. They evidently inher- 

 ited the same weak constitutions of the Rouens. They had not 

 the vitality of the Pekins, while they required at least three 

 weeks longer to mature. This latter alone was sufficient to 

 ■condemn them for all market purposes, especially when sub- 

 jected to the same discount on dark pins and feathers as the 

 Cayugas. This was sufficient to discard both breeds for my 

 use as market birds. 



Aylesburys 



But I expected great things from the Aylesburys. I 

 procured the best ducks to be had in the country, while I 

 used imported drakes from the best prize-winners in England, 

 and I have never yet seen those drakes equaled in size ; and 

 I was unusually careful in this experiment, because I knew 

 that the English breeders claimed for their birds a superiority 

 in all the points essential for a good market bird, namely, 

 ■delicacy and flavor of flesh, size, precocity, and greater egg 

 production, — faying special stress on their hardiness and vital- 

 ity. I bred those birds clear and crossed them, carefully noting 

 the result. Our first batch of Pekins and those crosses num- 

 bered about 300, nearly equally divided. These were mixed 

 and confined in two yards. 



For the first two weeks there was no perceptible differ- 

 ence, when gradually the young Pekins began to outgrow the 

 •crosses, the difference increasing with age. The former were 

 very even in size, the latter irregular, while the mortality was 

 as six to one in favor of the Pekins. When we began to kill 

 those birds the Pekins were all in the market at the end of 

 eleven weeks, while the crosses remained in the yards fully 



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