RANKIN'S DUCK BOOK 



breeder is growing on a small scale it will be economy for him 

 to use brooders instead of a heater. 



Figure 11. — Brooder. 



Figure 11 represents the best duck brooder I know of. 

 As there is no patent on it anyone can make it who has the 

 conveniences. This brooder is six and a half feet long by 

 three feet wideband will accommodate 150 ducklings. These 

 brooders are of the most improved construction, are intended 

 for both indoor and outdoor work, keeping the young ducks 

 dry and warm in cold, stormy weather, even when located out 

 of doors. The heat is generated in copper boilers, the water 

 flowing through a galvanized iron tank, under which the 

 young ducklings hover. This tank is five feet long, twelve 

 inches wide, and about an inch thick, and is hung about eight 

 inches from ends and back of brooder, leaving nearly eighteen 

 inches in front the entire length of brooder, in which to feed 

 the first day or two. The case of this brooder is made of 

 matched boards and thoroughly ventilated, and furnished with 

 glass doors to admit light. This brooder should be used in 

 the brooding house during winter and early spring, after which 

 it can be used to better advantage out of doors. 



Let it be understood that a good brooder is, next to the 

 incubator, the most important thing in the business. It is 

 worse than useless to get out large hatches of strong, healthy 

 birds, only to have them smothered or chilled in worthless 

 brooders. Numbers of the patent brooders now on the market 

 are made by men who never raised a chick or duck in their 

 lives, and are regular fire and death traps. Many instances 

 have come under my personal notice where not only ducks, 

 •chicks and brooders, but the buildings themselves have been 

 ■entirely consumed by these fire traps. 



Again, those brooders are always rated far higher than 

 their actual capacity. Ignorant parties buy them, fill them 

 up according to instructions, when a sad mortality is sure to 

 follow from over-crowding and consequent over-heating.. 

 This is especially the case with chicks. Ducklings never 

 smother each other from overcrowding, but of course, will not 



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