DUCK DOLLARS 25 
Shelter and Ventilation 
Until one gets a large plant in operation, buildings for ducks are a 
secondary matter. The average home place with a little land is big 
enough to make a start. Quite a business in ducks can be done on 
limited ground. 
We know of duck plants where double our number of breeders are 
kept producing less than half the number of ducklings we market yearly. 
We produce from sixty to seventy-five or more duck- : 
lings to each breeding duck a year, while the breeders Expensive 
above referred to produce only about thirty. We relate Buildings not 
this as proof of what a strain of Pekins will do when Necessary to 
it has been built up by selection, and attention to the Start 
details of the breeding. It is a waste of energy, time and money to 
keep 1,500 birds producing eggs when half that number will do as well. 
Every house has a cellar or back room where the first incubator may 
be run. The few breeding ducks may be housed in the woodshed or 
small building or shack of any kind. Not even wire netting eighteen 
inches or two feet wide is needed to confine them; boards fifteen inches 
wide will serve. Use carriage house, barn or outhouse. The mature 
breeders can stand any amount of exposure in our winter, but they should 
have the chance of getting in under where it is dry, and 
where they can squat on dry leaves or other bedding so 
as to keep their feet warm. If a freezing night comes 
and you have your breeding ducks in a very cold shelter, better get them 
into the barn or other fairly warm place where their eggs will not freeze. 
After April, in the North, they can safely lay anywhere without 
danger of frozen eggs. 
If you are in the South, or any state where the climate is warmer 
than ours, you should handle your ducks, as far as shelter is concerned, 
as you observe poultry raisers do whom you know. Understand, the 
pictures and descriptions of buildings which you see in this book apply 
to cold New England. Duck breeders here put up expensive, substantial 
buildings, some with hot-water heaters, burning coal; and the fact that 
they can do this, covering their farms with such structures, is proof of 
a substantial kind that there is money in the duck business. 
When the youngest ducklings come out of your incubator, they 
need a brooder, or foster-mother wooden device. If there is anybody 
who reads this book who does not know what a brooder 
is, the picture of it in the catalogue of the manufacturer 
will tell, and the machine, with the directions that go 
with it, will be understood at once. Brooders are used both indoors and 
outdoors. An outdoor brooder, however, should not be put out in very 
cold weather, just because it is labeled for outdoors. Protect it all you 
can in such weather by putting it in a shed or under cover somewhere. 
The little ones are managed in a small portable brooder in the same 
manner as described in this book under the head of “ Youngest Duck- 
Raise Ducks 
Anywhere 
Brooders are 
Necessary 
