DUCKS AND GEESE 383 
of marketing. On many farms ducks are consumed on 
the home table and none are ever sold. A different con- 
dition obtains in the commercial plants, whether large 
or small. The effort is to bring ducks to a marketable 
size at as early an age as possible. Most of the young 
ducks are not kept longer than 12 weeks because they 
are large enough then to sell and have not usually started 
their second crop of pin feathers. For this reason they 
are easier to pluck than when somewhat older. At this 
age they should weigh, dressed, five to six pounds. They 
are sold as “green” ducks. The profit to the grower is in 
this form. Ducks fed and fattened to a maturer age, 
when a greater proportion of the weight is meat, bring 
no more on the market than these soft-fat and cheaply 
produced green ducks. 
8. Raising geese.—Geese are not as generally grown as 
ducks. A considerable de- 
mand for “green goose” 
gives rise to much activ- 
ity in geese raising in 
some places. Mature 
young geese are relished, 
but their cost is usually 
greater than the returns 
they bring when mar- 
keted. If geese had to be 
fed on grain it would not 
pay to raise them; the ex- = 
pense would be greater WC" 
than the price received. Peering nntree 
Only during the first three or four weeks is it advisable 
to give the goslings a little meal, carefully mixed. Asa 
farm race they have their place, not for eggs, for the best 
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