THE GAME BREEDER 



139 



lacking in soil or climate. As to climate 

 the birds are known to stand any amount 

 of heat provided they can find shade .and 

 they are said to thrive in mountainous 

 regions where the snow lies on the 

 ground. It certainly is interesting work 

 to endeavor to introduce a new species 

 and the work in hand has an additional 



interest since it seems necessary to 

 change the sporting demeanor of the 

 quail. 



P. S. — I hope readers who are experi- 

 menting with the California quail and 

 others in the Eastern States will write 

 their experiences for The Game Breeder. 



A BEGINNER'S EXPERIENCE. 



Z. T. De Kalmar. 



You seem to encourage contributions 

 by small breeders and beginners to such 

 an extent that I feel inclined to send in 

 my mite to the Exchange of The Game 

 Breeder. 



I had several clutches of mallard and 

 black duck eggs to hatch, three of which 

 appear to be rather characteristic with 

 beginners, and I will therefore give the 

 data in regards to these three hatches. 



The first one was a setting of thirteen 

 mallard eggs that were kept three weeks 

 before setting, being transhipped in the 

 meantime three times. The eggs were 

 set under a buff rock hen and hatched out 

 on the twenty-fifth day 13 ducklings out 

 of 13 eggs. 



The second clutch was sixteen black 

 duck eggs, received from the West, and 

 set under two hens five days after arri- 

 val. This was a very peculiar and signal 

 failure. One of the hens proved to be a 

 cannibal pure and simple, and ate seven 

 of the eight eggs put under her. The 

 other hen broke and spoiled seven 

 others, until I was only able to save one 

 egg, and that one I brought out in the 

 incubator. 



The third one was a clutch of 100 

 mallard eggs of which 96 went into an 

 incubator, four of them having arrived 

 broken. The incubator was an "iron- 

 clad'' of medium size, which was started 

 at 101 degrees and which I found very 

 satisfactory under the adverse weather 

 conditions of an unseasonable summer 

 A fair-sized flat iron pan filled with sand 



and water was placed under the eggs, 

 which was refilled every third day. The 

 eggs were turned at the end of 48 hours 

 the first time, after which they were 

 turned twice daily and cooled once, at 

 night. On the fourth day I sprinkled the 

 eggs with tepid water with the help of 

 an atomizer which I found very handy 

 for that purpose. Thereafter the eggs 

 were sprinkled at regular intervals of 

 four days at the night turning, and after 

 the cooling, just before being put back 

 into incubator. The temperature was 

 raised to 102 degrees on the fourteenth 

 day and kept there until the twenty-first 

 day, at the same time increasing the 

 cooling time from 5 to 10 minutes, ac- 

 cording to atmospheric conditions, dur- 

 ing the first two weeks, to 15 minutes 

 daily during the third week. Entering 

 the last week of incubation the temper- 

 ature was raised to 103 degrees, cooling 

 time increased gradually to thirty min- 

 utes and the eggs sprinkled dailv with 

 tepid water. Pipping started at noon of 

 the twenty-sixth day, after a final test- 

 ing showed a fertility of 67 eggs out of 

 the 96 on the nineteenth day. Out of 

 these 67 fertile eggs I hatched 53 duck- 

 lings at the end of the twenty-ninth day. 

 Two of the ducklings were unfit to sur- 

 vive and died shortly after ; one a crip- 

 ple of both legs, the other affected by 

 some sort of epileptic disease that caused 

 it to throw somersaults. 



The first feed given was grit (oyster 

 shells') and hardboiled egg at the end of 



