RANKIN'S DUCK BOOK 



hatch, and a great mortality is sure to follow. If you should 

 be running 100 sitters, the more you can take off at a time the 

 sooner you will get through. Have a sponge and warm water 

 handy as you will have more or less broken eggs. The rest 

 should be washed clean at once and returned to the nest. 

 When hatching out be sure and remove the little ducklings 

 as fast as they come out, to a warm place to dry off, as owing 

 to their long necks and peculiar shape the mother hen will un- 

 consciously crush many more of them than she would of 

 chicks. In fact, they should never see the hen after being 

 taken away, as they can be grown to much better advantage, 

 and with far less mortality, in brooders. 



And just here is the great economy of setting six or eight 

 hens at a time ; the young ducklings can be all put together in 

 one brooder and cared for with less trouble and with less mor- 

 tality than that resulting from one hen with her brood. The 

 ducklings should be confined in yards, the same care and feed 

 given them as already recommended for artificially hatched 

 birds. Allusion has already been made to the proverbial tim- 

 idity of the Pekin duck. This sometimes causes trouble to the 

 grower when the birds are confined together in large numbers. 

 When six or eight weeks old, and even after they are full 

 grown, they often get frightened, or gallied as it were, in dark 

 nights. Being unable to see, one bird will touch another, he 

 will spring away and come in contact with several more. 



In an instant the whole are in the most violent commo- 

 tion, whirling and treading each other down. It will be a per- 

 fect stampede and will sometimes be kept up the entire night. 

 After a night of such dissipation many of the birds will ap- 

 pear completely jaded out, and some of them unable to rise. 

 Of course, this must be stopped at once br the grower may bid 

 farewell to all fattening or laying on the part of the birds. 

 Hanging lanterns in the yards at stated distances will usually 

 restore order. It will not be needed when there is a moon. 

 See that there are no sharp projections in either yards or breed- 

 ing-pens, as both old and young birds are often lamed for life 

 by simply coming in contact with them in the night. 



Too much care cannot be exercised on this point, as the 

 bones of the birds are so small and their bodies so frail. As 

 has been intimated before, ducks are not subject to so many 

 diseases as hens, — while they are entirely free from lice or body 

 parasites of any kind. Indeed, I never saw a louse on a duck 

 in all my experience. Still, it cannot be denied that good san- 

 itary conditions, together with plenty of pure air and water, 

 will not only greatly increase the egg-production, but facili- 

 tate the growth and improve the properties of the duckling. 



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