THE GAME BREEDER 



183 



of The Game Breeder are now holding 

 on to a big lot of grouse, although under 

 existing laws which prohibit shooting the 

 birds appear not to be worth anything to 

 anybody. The title to the grouse is fully 

 as good as the title to the buffaloes saved 

 by private breeders was and the govern- 

 ment and individual purchasers recog- 

 nized that it was good when they pur- 

 chased bison. The largest owner who 

 developed a herd from a few pair of an- 

 imals made a small fortune when he sold 

 them. Those who are properly looking 

 after their prairie grouse and sharp-tails 

 have a small fortune in sight, since the 

 birds and eggs will bring better prices 

 than pheasants and they can be produced 

 much less expensively on the farms with- 

 out any injury to farm crops. They are 

 wise in taking our advice to look after 

 the birds, but some are impatient at the 

 law's delay in granting proper shipping 

 facilities for this valuable farm product. 

 They will soon thank. The Game Breeder 

 for advising them to save the game, even 

 if it appeared to be worthless, and they 

 will soon praise it for creating a public 

 sentiment which will result in their sell- 

 ing birds and eggs, and will restore 

 grouse shooting in States where the sport 

 long has been extinct. 



CORRESPONDENCE 



Editor Game Breeder : 



You say in the August issue: "We 

 wish many of our readers would write 

 a few lines telling us about their good 

 and bad luck during the breeding sea- 

 son." 



Well, then, good luck. I had a small 

 "Ironclad" incubator going with 135 

 Mallard eggs laid by my own birds, 

 which I started on June 7th. For the 

 first week of incubation the weather was 

 fairly favorable for incubator work. 

 Along the second week, however, we ex- 

 perienced a hot spell that lasted several 

 days, and during which time I had some 

 difficulty in keeping the incubator COOL 

 enough. Then followed a few days of 

 normal weather, and after this another 

 hot spell with the thermometer at 110 

 degrees for days at a time. It was just 

 about the most critical time, the incuba- 



tor going at 103 degrees, and I felt 

 obliged to turn off the heat on more oc- 

 casions than one, cooling the eggs twice 

 a day for 45 minutes each, as well as 

 spraying the eggs twice a day with warm 

 water. When hatching day came I got 

 115 ducklings out of 135 eggs, the whole 

 process taking less than 24 hours ; the 

 shortest time for such number I ever ex- 

 perienced. Surely it was good luck, the 

 more remarkable since the eggs had been 

 kept several weeks before incubation. 



Now for the ill-luck, "rotten luck," to 

 quote you. 



At the same time that I had started 

 my small "Ironclad" which, by the way, 

 I much prefer to any other make for 

 hatching duck eggs, I also started an- 

 other incubator with 250 Mallard eggs, 

 100 of which were shipped to me by a 

 western dealer. 



I am sorry to say that through misun- 

 derstandings and the absence of the 

 breeder these eggs were 10 weeks late in 

 delivery, let alone the fact that they were 

 seven days in coming a distance of less 

 than 1,000 miles. At any rate, having 

 tested the fertility of my own eggs, I 

 had no misgivings when on June 7th I 

 started both incubators with 385 eggs all 

 told. The eggs came highly recommend- 

 ed by one of the our most successful 

 western breeders and were of a strictly 

 wild stock. After less than 24 hours of 

 incubation a number of these 100 eggs 

 popped and I was compelled to empty 

 the incubator, wash all eggs as well as 

 the walls and trays of the machine in 

 fear of all eggs becoming spoiled, infect- 

 ed, so to speak. This performance con- 

 tinued until after the end of the second 

 week there were but 34 of the original 

 100 eggs left, besides the 150 Mallard 

 eggs of my own. I need not say that I 

 was quite worried and that I did every- 

 thing in my power to save the rest of the 

 eggs. I kept the incubator scrupulously 

 clean, being unable to obtain another one, 

 when on the 24th day, in the morning, 

 when I first got up and went over to see 

 the incubator, I found that several of the 

 remaining eggs had popped during the 

 night, scattering their ill-smelling con- 

 tents all over the eggs. Again I cleaned 

 the incubator thoroughly, wiped the eggs 



