DUCK DOLLARS 33 
is not true of ducks. By overfeeding a hen you can 
stop her laying, but you cannot overfeed a duck so as to 
stop her laying. 
The pens inside the cold house should be bedded when necessary. 
For bedding, hay, straw, sawdust, meadow hay, leaves or baled shavings 
can be used. The shavings are best. They are cheaper and more con- 
venient to handle. A bale of them weighing from ninety to 100 pounds 
costs only about twenty-five cents. 
This bedding should be put down inside the pens in the house to a 
depth of one inch to start. The foundation is dry sand or gravel. A 
new layer of bedding should be put down twice a week : 
on top of the old bedding. It is not necessary to clean Bedding 
out the old shavings. If the pens are cleaned out with Pointers 
a fork twice a year, that is enough. 
The bedding should be changed on some fair day when the ducks are 
outdoors out of the way. Do not change the bedding 
while they are inside of the house, for if you do it will About the 
frighten them. Bedding 
The ducks tread down the manure and shavings into a hard layer. 
The peculiarity of this manure (for the mass is nearly all manure) is 
that it does not heat and ferment in the pens indoors, but when you throw 
it outdoors in a pile it does heat and ferment. It is a splendid dressing 
for lawns or for general use about the farm, same as any manure. It is 
very rich, and vegetation to which it is applied will thrive luxuriantly. 
Grow vegetables in the summer to feed to the ducks in the winter. 
Anything in the vegetable line is good, such as turnips, carrots, mangels, 
cabbages, small potatoes and beets. A change in the 
food can be made with advantage every other day, giving 
the same vegetables to the birds only three times 
a week. For a large number of ducks, a great labor-saving machine is 
a vegetable cutter. Run the vegetables through the cutter so that when 
they come out they will be in pieces about three-eighths or one-half an 
inch square. The ordinary hand cutter is sufficient even for a big lot of 
ducks. It is not necessary to run the cutter by power. After the vege- 
tables have been cut, boil them in kettle, tank or caldron. Small potatoes 
should be boiled and then mashed while hot with a pestle. 
skins and all. The vegetables should be boiled until 
they are soft. It takes carrots about two hours boiling 
to soften. 
Cut clover for ducks costs about $1.50 per 100 pounds. It is cut 
clover which has been cured dry. 
Ducks use their bills in rooting as pigs root with their snouts. 
Loam frequented by a flock will get to look as if a harrow had been run 
over it. Ducks root to get grubs and worms, which they love and which 
do them good, making their eggs more fertile. Hens mane kee 
scratch the surface of the ground only, but ducks get Ww. E 
under the surface. A newly-plowed field or a swamp is Ora Eales 
much enjoyed by ducks. They will root there until they are filled clear to 
the neck with worms. Insect life of all kinds is relished. If a young duck- 
ling by chance eats a bee or a hornet, the duckling wil! be injured or per- 
No Danger of 
Overfeeding 
Green Food 
Necessary 
Boil the 
Vegetables 
