140 POULTEY PEEDING AND l''ATrENINa 



meal until we get even parts of bran and meal. At 

 two weeks of age they will be getting half and half 

 of bran and meal and five per cent of beef scrap. 



"We often feed young ducks five weeks old as high 

 as twenty-five per cent of beef scraps. I do not know 

 that I would advise that always, but one must be 

 guided by the condition of the market. One objection 

 to feeding so much beef scrap is that it tends to make 

 many pinfeathers. You can take a young duck at ten 

 weeks old that has had no animal food and he will 

 ■not show pinfeathers at all, while the same bird having 

 had animal food would show a great many pinfeathers 

 at ten weeks and at eleven weeks he would be too pin- 

 feathery to dress. Ten weeks is the usual age at which 

 they are dressed, but it depends largely upon what you 

 feed them whether they are fit to be dressed at that age 

 or not. The cost of caring for them and the cost of 

 grains and meat foods decide the question whether it 

 is best to dress them early or market them at a later 

 date. I think that generally the quicker you can get 

 rid of them the better it is. 



"We kill at ten weeks. The common way of fat- 

 tening would be to cut off the bran at eight weeks. We 

 do not change the food from the time we begin to give 

 them equal parts of bran and meal right up to the 

 killing time, and so do not have the bother of getting 

 the separate foods mixed. Green food we do not give 

 at all to the young ducks, unless we intend them for 

 breeders, and then we give them a moderate amount 

 of green food. You can get quicker growth with beef 

 scrap than to add green food. We usually kill at ten 

 weeks, because at that time they pick better. Beef 

 scraps start the pinfeathers ; the bird that has had very 

 little beef scraps will pick at twelve or thirteen ■weeks 

 very nicely, but at ti^i or eleven weeks the pinfoitlier:= 

 start quite freely if the ducks have been fed with beef 



