THE GAME BREEDER 



169 



MALLARDS, NEAR MALLARDS AND WILD TURKEYS. 



By R. A. Chiles. 



I have always felt that it seemed too 

 much like beating the periodical and ob- 

 taining advertising or notoriety, which- 

 ever you may choose to term it, by break- 

 ing into print unless we, paid for same. 

 I also remember what Job (not Dr. Job, 

 the author of "Propagation of Wild 

 Birds") said "Oh that mine enemy would 

 write a book." But the recent mallard 

 duck egg controversy* moved me to 

 break a well-settled rule. 



What I have to say is nrjr own exper- 

 ience. I do not attempt to cite the ex- 

 perience of others. 



After years of careful observation it 

 has been my experience that if the 

 greenhead or so-called gray mallard is 

 kept closely confined and continually in- 

 bred without using any wild cross that 

 in three years' time he loses his power of 

 flight and is nothing but a puddle duck. 

 This applies although the parent stock 

 was pure wild trapped birds and there 

 was not the least chance for cross-breed- 

 ing. Two reasons seem to cause this. 

 First, mallards raised in captivity be- 

 come extremely gentle and soon cease to 

 be man shy. Second, all wild birds that 

 are raised in captivity and fed regularly, 

 not having to hustle for a living, put on 

 weight and thicken especially about the 

 neck. And even if more or less shy or 

 wild the wing not growing any longer or 

 larger than before has not the weight 

 lifting power, with increased body 

 weight, to take the birds through the 

 air at such a rate of speed, even if in- 

 clined to fly, as to make them a good 

 sporting proposition. 



We try to overcome this defect by 

 each year introducing wild blood into 

 the flock. Now right here it would be 

 well to state that we have never had a 

 wild caught drake to mate the first year 



*A recent case before the Game Guild when 

 the seller shipped eggs bought from another 

 breeder. 



after we confined him and very seldom 

 has a wild caught duck laid in captivity 

 the first year and if she did it was seldom 

 that the eggs, or any of them, were fer- 

 tile. To get ■ good results we have to 

 wait until the second or even the third 

 year after captivity. 



Again, to overcome the tendency to 

 domesticity, we have never tried any of 

 the following suggestions but we under- 

 stand a state game farm to which we 

 made these suggestions is trying these 

 experiments this year to see if the birds 

 will not remain shy. The reason we 

 have never tried it is because being deal- 

 ers and breeders we want to keep our 

 birds pure but to get a good egg yield 

 they must be gentle. 



First, select a quiet spot and let the 

 mallards (old) be wing clipped and en- 

 closed in a fair sized run that is con- 

 nected with running water or a pond with 

 plenty of rushes in them ; after they nest 

 and begin to brood the eggs remove the 

 wire enclosure and after incubation let 

 the old duck hustle with the young for 

 themselves. Do not attempt to feed or 

 care for them in any way; or, second, 

 let domestic ducks hatch the eggs and 

 turn the ducks loose on the stream or 

 pond in the same manner; or, third, if 

 obtainable, get each year eggs from the 

 nests of pure wild birds which is a pre- 

 carious proposition. 



It might be well to add here that to 

 the sportsman who is advised or posted 

 on the subject that under the above con- 

 ditions it is impossible to furnish eggs in 

 large quantities and at cheap prices, the 

 wild birds will not lay as many eggs, and 

 a great many young ducks will be lost 

 from turtles and other vermin, and the 

 mature birds will be correspondingly 

 higher. 



As to the duck raised in captivity it 

 has always been a mystery to us how he 

 could be produced and sold at a profit at 



