I must not, however, leave any one with the impression that 

 only one method of feeding will do for Indian Runner Ducks, 

 or other ducks. The methods most commonly recommended in 

 handling ducks have been gleaned chiefly from the handling of 

 the men who raise them commercially, for the sake of the carcass. 

 They are the methods of those who yard their ducks, and push 

 them almost beyond reason when they are to go to market early. 



On the farm, especially where there is abundant room and 

 natural water privileges, one may do differently. I am accus- 

 tomed to a rough mental grouping of feeds which is easily pos- 

 sible to any feeder. It includes the starchy feeds, which are 

 heat and fat makers, (including fats themselves with the fat 

 makers, at a higher value) ; the muscle and egg makers form 

 my second group; the green feeds, clover meals, vegetables, 

 form the third. If birds are on free, good range, we need not 

 think much about this third class. If not, we must make much 

 of it, and use its members in large proportion. We must remem- 

 ber that grass is not the same as hay, because it is so largely wa- 

 ter. Proportions may be roughly in one's mind, something like 

 one part of muscle-makers to two of fat and six or seven of 

 the starchy things (which means, mostly, the grains in their 

 natural state, unground and undivided as to food values). To 

 produce eggs, one adds a larger proportion of the muscle-makers, 

 like peas, beans, meat, etc. This is all that is necessary for a 

 feeder to know, except whether any special feed ranks high as a 

 muscle-maker or a fat maker. This is really the base of that 

 far more elaborate thing called "scientific feeding." 



From S. H. Scott, Onehunga, New Zealand: "My Won- 

 der kept on laying till she had laid 200 eggs in 205 days, after 

 which she went into a partial moult. But that did not stop hei 

 from shelling out her large eggs each morning. I want readers 

 of tliis article to understand fully that I did not force her for 

 egg production. All she got was quite plain, viz., brewers' 



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