34 DUCK DOLLARS 
haps killed. There are many homes with orchards, sink-spout or a little 
meadow where a flock of ducks would be very much at home and have 
a fine time. It is good business to turn ducks into such places because 
the worms cut down the grain bill and are just so much clear gain in 
cost. 
The proper number of ducks (which you are saving for breeding) 
to be kept outdoors in the summer in one flock is 100. Do not keep 
more than 100 on one grass range. If you do, they are more liable to 
run over one another in case of fright or panic and hurt their wings. 
The grass range for 100 ducks should be at least 150 
The Grass feet Jong and fifty feet wide. 
Range The ducks are up and about all night long more or 
less. They rest in the sun in the daytime, but at night they do not care 
to be absolutely tranquil. 
During a black night, with no moon, they are liable to take alarm 
and crowd over one another in fright in a corner of the pen, and this 
will result in injured wings, and lameness of some of the birds. To avoid 
this a lantern should be lighted and hung from a limb of 
a tree in the grass range or from a wooden post planted 
in the middle of the grass range. The light from this 
lantern will enable the birds to see the pen and one another, and they 
do not take alarm nor crowd. The oil in the lantern lasts easily all 
night long. The lantern should be filled with oil every day. This item 
of kerosene oil for the lanterns is a small one even on big plants. 
Some breeders with fancy houses and pens, who have electric light 
on their premises, also have electric light for their ducks, having one 
small twelve or sixteen candle-power bulb for each pen. 
Ducks in a new home, or even ducks in their old home, do not all 
begin laying at the same time. Given a certain flock of ducks, if half of 
When They a are laying by February tst, that is doing very well. 
ne month later all of them may be laying, We are 
Lay speaking of our latitude now, remember. In southern 
latitudes, like that of Virginia, for example, ducks begin to lay earlier. 
Birds that are hatched in March begin laying in August. This is true 
all through the South and on the Pacific coast. 
Ducks do well in Canada. Unlike hens, they are fond of snow. 
They will wade around in the snow and slush and enjoy getting out on 
snow during the daytime, even in the coldest weather. However, to 
Don’t Mind get eggs from them, their feet should be kept warm, and 
the: Geld this means that in cold, snowy places like Canada they 
should not be allowed to stand on the snow all the time, 
but should be protected by being given a chance to go inside a house. 
The breeding ducks will lay better if you let them outdoors every 
day during the winter, except when it is bitterly cold. If there is water 
in the yards which has not frozen, or which has been melted by the sun, 
they will play in it, and it will not hurt them. After a fall of snow, it 
is well to shovel about ten feet from the house out into the pens so that 
they will have a space to rest in during the day without being liable 
to cold feet. They will play on the snow, but they will not lay so well 
when their feet get cold. Of course, they know enough to court the bare 
A Lantern at 
Night 
