26 DUCK DOLLARS 
lings.” What is written there applies to your little 
How to ones, only we describe them there as having a big house 
Handle over their heads, whereas your brooder is a small house 
in itself. 
Progress in the duck business means buildings. There are single 
brooder houses, double brooder houses, cold houses, fattening sheds, 
incubator cellar, killing and shipping house, grain storehouse, and so on. 
Ducks should always be on the ground. Do not have floors in 
any duck houses. 
The ordinary brooder house is built with an uneven double roof (not 
single roof). That is, the back roof is half as long as the front roof. 
It is high at the back to give walking space for the 
attendant; this form of construction gives head room 
there. Erect the house so that the long side of roof 
will face the sun, that is, the south. 
For a house less than 150 feet long (sixteen feet wide) use lumber 
of the following dimensions: Studs two by three inches, plates two by 
four, sills two by six, rafters two by five, collar beams one by six. For 
a house thirty feet wide and more than 150 feet long 
How to use studs two by four, sills three by five, rafters two by 
Build six, collar beams one by six, and for plates two two-by- 
fours spiked together. In a house thirty feet wide or over use collar 
beams two by five. A house of this width should have posts to hold 
up the roof. 
Lay the sills of all houses on posts, or brick or stone piers. Set 
the piers about five feet apart. 
In houses built with even double roof, the walk is down the middle 
under the ridge-pole, and not down the back. Such a house has pens on 
each side of the walk. 
Good, substantial duck buildings can be erected cheaply provided 
roofing paper be used instead of shingles. There is a great difference 
in roofing papers, however. Many have to be painted 
frequently in order to keep them efficient, and the cost 
of this paint, with labor of applying, will soon amount 
to more than if shingles had been used at first. 
The pens in the nursery house should not be more than three feet 
wide. Some recommend that they be four, five or even six feet wide. 
Not more than fifty little ducklings should be put into 
a pen, and fifty will go into a three-foot pen all right. 
Those who have built wider pens have found it not wise 
to put more than fifty into the pen. They will crowd together anyway, 
and more than fifty in a bunch may make trouble by walking over one 
another. The stronger ones will tramp over the weaker ones and hurt 
them. No lanterns are used in the nursery at night to keep the duck- 
lings from crowding, because the little ones are under the brooder 
covers, shut in the darkness, where the lantern light could not penetrate 
anyway. 
In a house with pens only three feet wide, the ducklings should, of 
course, not be kept longer than three weeks. After that age they should 
be transferred to more roomy quarters. 
The Brooder 
House 
Have a 
Tight Roof 
The Nursery 
Pens 
