(some 18 years), I have enjoyed the work most during the past 

 two years, as I have been raising the Indian Runner ducks. They 

 have turned out to be the Farmers' Best Egg Machine. The}' 

 can stand more real hardship than any other fowls, requiring only 

 a good dry place to stay in at night, and in winter weather. Our 

 Runners are the English-bred, dark fawn and white type, or as 

 some term them, the Penciled Runners ; but they lay the large 

 pearly white eggs, and that is what suits the average farmer of 

 today. I have given my neighbor farmers the eggs to test for 

 eating, and they all went wild over them. What was the result? 

 Why they have them on their farms today producing such eggs as 

 I showed them. One farmer's wife drove nine miles to our place. 

 After seeing the fine large white eggs from our Penciled Runners 

 she took home 100 eggs to put in an incubator. 



"I find that the eggs hatch well in incubators, but if you 

 want to get real big hatches, use Plymouth Rock hens. We keep 

 quite a number for that purpose. When our ducks began to lay 

 a year ago in January, we sent what accumulated, with our hens' 

 eggs, to the New York City market, and received several cents 

 more per dozen than for the hens' eggs. But when the breeding 

 season commenced, we did some advertising, and could not keep 

 up with the orders that came in for the eggs. Later in the sea- 

 son, we sold all the baby ducklings we could hatch till Septem- 

 ber. We sent them west as far as Illinois, and south as far as 

 Virginia. 



"My experience in raising them is that they do not require 

 the feed and labor that hens need. The best method of brooding 

 them is with hens ; I put 10 to 15 ducklings with each hen in a 

 common slatted box like a southern berry crate without a bottom, 

 and put a piece of prepared roofing over the top, back and ends 

 to keep out wind and rain. I move this every other day, putting 

 up a board in front of them at night to keep out skunks, weasels 

 or other animals that might molest them. In this way, I can 



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