THE GAME BREEDER 



75 



attractive to the ducks and they are called 

 up every evening by a whistle and fed a 

 very little corn. It is surprising how 

 little grain is needed to hold the ducks 

 and keep them in good condition. Some 

 of these birds go South in the winter but 

 many of them return. 



The editor of The Game Breeder 

 made an experiment with black ducks 

 on Long Island letting the old birds fly 

 with their young which were reared 

 about an artificial pond made by sinking 

 a washtub to the level of the ground. 

 The ducks spent much of their time on 

 the bay a mile or two from the house 

 but returned late every afternoon when 

 they were fed with scraps from the table. 

 Late in the summer they did some dam- 

 age to the garden, eating cucumbers, wa- 

 termellons, corn, and in fact sampling 

 almost everything in the garden. They 

 were permitted to do this in order to 

 ascertain what they would eat. Almost 

 any garden vegetables and melons planted 

 roughly about a duck pond will furnish 

 a lot of inexpensive food when the 

 owner has the time to make such plant- 

 ings for the ducks. 



Water cress, wild rice, wild celery, 

 wapeto, pond weeds and other natural 

 foods can be planted to advantage where 

 the waters are suitable. The dealers in 

 these plants are prepared to furnish 

 plants and seed with instructions how to 

 plant them. At the Game Breeders pre- 

 serve on Long Island, N. Y., a few thou- 

 sand wild ducks which were reared on 

 the preserve ate all the water lilies in 

 a good sized pond. 



Mr. Clyde Terrell, of Oshkosh, Wis., 

 reported that his ducks which were per- 

 mitted to fly about on the farm procured 

 much food in a field of buckwheat espe- 

 cially planted for them. They ate the 

 newly sprouted plants and later the strain 

 in addition to the natural foods above 

 referred to. 



In the Western States many duck clubs 

 have fed their wild ducks large quanti- 

 ties of corn and wheat. When grain was 

 cheap this was an easy way to hold a 

 big lot of wild fowl on the club lakes and 

 marshes. But at the present prices for 

 grain it has been found necessary to pro- 



vide some other food for the ducks. 

 There are complaints from Southern 

 California about the wild ducks eating 

 rice. The ducks should be shot and sold 

 as food to offset the damage. 



Mr. W. B. Ager, the Oregon Food 

 Administrator, said recently, "No wheat 

 is to be used for duck feeding. Substi- 

 tutes must be found and I am told that 

 patriotic owners of duck lakes have dis- 

 covered a remedy and have applied it. 

 They are paying high prices for small 

 potatoes which in former days would not 

 have been dug at all. These they are 

 mixing with other materials and the 

 ducks are thriving on them." 



The wild ducks seem to be omniver- 

 ous, or nearly so, and many waste prod- 

 ucts of the garden can be utilized in 

 feeding them. They have been observed 

 in peach and other orchards, feeding on 

 the fruit rotting on the ground. Where 

 mast bearing trees are near the duck 

 rearing grounds the ducks may be in- 

 duced to feed in the woods. At the old 

 Game Breeders Association preserve 

 ducks ate acorns in the woods. All 

 sportsman are aware that about the 

 Western streams the wild fowl eat many 

 acorns, beech nuts and other waste, be- 

 sides the wild rice, wild celery, pond 

 weeds, watercress and other natural 

 foods. There are many places where 

 it would pay to gather the acorns and 

 other mast and feed them to the ducks. 



On game farms and preserves near 

 the seashore many cheap foods for wild 

 ducks are obtained. On a Cape Cod pre- 

 serve the young duks are fed largely on 

 the horseshoe crabs which are found 

 abundant on the beach. Young and old 

 ducks will eat fish eagerly and on a 

 Connecticut preserve small worthless fish 

 are netted, cut up and fed to the ducks. 

 About the Long Island bays, and else- 

 where, the fishermen take many fish 

 which are not very marketable on ac- 

 count of their size or the un desirability 

 of the species. 1 have purchased fish 

 at very small prices and have had many 

 given to me as too worthless to sell. Al- 

 though a fish diet does not add to the 

 ouality of the flesh of the ducks, and in 

 fact it often imoairs its value as food, 

 there can be no objection to feeding fish, 



