182 
of the stage. This is the breed used almost exclusively on 
commercial duck plants, and for several reasons. The 
Pekin is a large bird, and grows with marvelous rapidity, 
often reaching a weight of six pounds in ten or twelve 
weeks. It is easily raised and fattened. Being pure white, 
the feathers add materially to the profits. Eight to ten 
birds will yield a pound of feathers, worth from forty to 
fifty cents as the market may run. ‘That is assuming that 
the birds are dry picked. If they are scalded, the feathers 
are not worth as much by five or six cents a pound. 
Pekin ducks have fine white flesh and can be raised in 
They are sold when be- 
brooders very early in the year. 
tween ten and twelve weeks 
old and there is a large and 
growing demand. Pekin 
ducks are easy to keep and 
easy to raise. A pen of four 
or five with one drake will 
be enough to insure as many 
ducklings as the average 
amateur can well handle. 
The Pekins lay fewer eggs 
than the Indian Runners, 
but from sixty to a hundred 
may be expected. Generally 
those laid at the beginning 
of the season are not very 
fertile, so that it hardly pays 
to set them. On large plants 
the birds are forced by heavy 
feeding so that they lay in December, but the amateur may 
be satisfied to get his first eggs in late January or early 
the following month. 
There is yet another excellent breed of ducks, the Rouen, 
which commends itself to the man or woman who wants 
to keep just a few and does not want to give them much 
attention. Rouen ducks grow as large as Pekins but do not 
mature as fast, and their brown, plumage makes them less 
valuable as market ducks. 
Neither do they lay as many 
eggs as the Indian Runners, 
but to run at large, foraging 
for much of their living, 
mixing with the other fowls 
and still proving satisfactory 
as to egg producing and 
table qualities, the Rouens 
are not easily excelled. 
Indian Runners and Pekins 
should not be allowed in the 
yard with other feathered 
stock. It is different with 
the Rouens, because they are 
peaceable and docile. ‘They 
will subsist largely on the 
waste of a farm, and are 
satisfied with a rough shed as protection from the weather. 
People who have been accustomed to caring for hens 
will be surprised, agreeably, no doubt, to find that ducks 
require very little coddling even while they give just as 
good an account of themselves. The very fact that there 
are no dropping-boards to clean off means considerable say- 
ing in labor, as well as doing away with a disagreeable 
task. No whitewashing of the house is necessary, for there 
are no insect pests to combat, and there is no doctoring of 
roup and gapes. One disadvantage lies in the quack of the 
ducks, which may become annoyingly monotonous if the 
birds are penned in close proximity to a house; a condition 
which may be readily avoided in time. Some breeders claim 
that the Indian Runners make less noise than other breeds. 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
Rouen ducks are large, docile and particularly good for the small estate 
Low fences will confine ducks within bound 
May, 1912 
There are several points wherein the care of ducks dif- 
fers materially from that demanded by hens. Hens, for 
instance, thrive on dry rations, while ducks must have a 
soft mash, for the reason that they have no real crop and 
the food goes more directly to the digestive organs than 
with hens. At the same time, a little whole grain may be 
given. Commercial breeders often feed the laying stock 
a luncheon of whole corn. Soft mash, though, is the regu- 
lar diet for old and young birds alike. 
Hens may be kept for a long time in one yard, but if 
kept for more than a year or two in a small enclosure, 
ducks make the ground soft and muddy—‘‘puddle”’ it, as 
the saying goes. This result 
can be avoided, though, by 
using the yards only a part 
of the year, spading or 
ploughing up the ground 
and sowing rye as soon as 
the ducks» have been re- 
moved. This practice serves 
a doubly useful purpose; it 
keeps the ground in good 
condition and it provides a 
crop of green food for the 
birds to eat—and _ green 
food they must have in 
order to do well. 
Ducks are nervous and 
easily disturbed, especially 
when housed in large flocks. 
For that reason it is well not to keep more than fifty young 
birds in the same pen or yard. Sometimes a sudden and 
unusual noise will cause them to stampede, climbing 
over each other in their blind fright, and bringing about 
disastrous results. ‘That being the case, it is well to have 
them in small flocks and to encourage small boys to stay 
away. It is not uncommon for ducks to become affrighted 
at night, when there are many together, so that they all set 
up a tremendous quacking 
and rush about in wild con- 
fusion. This sort of trouble 
may be prevented for the 
most part by keeping a 
lighted lantern in each pen. 
Although ducks do not 
need water to swim in, they 
require a great quantity to 
drink. What is more, this 
water must always be given 
in vessels sufficiently deep 
so that the ducks may bury 
their entire beaks in the 
water. The reason for this 
necessity lies in the fact that 
nostrils are easily clogged by 
the soft mash which they 
eat or by the mud into which they sometimes delve so that 
they would smother if they could not wash it out. When 
they are eating, they continually leave the feeding trough 
to waddle to the drinking fountain to drink and to wash their 
bills. It often seems difficult to convince people that ducks 
really do not require water in which to bathe. It is a demon- 
strable fact, however, and outraged though Nature may 
be, the birds get along just as well if they never have an 
opportunity to stick their webbed feet into water as long 
as they live. It is true that some breeders hold the opinion 
that the eggs are more fertile when the ducks have water 
for taking the kind of exercise which is most natural to 
them, but it is also true that some of the largest and most 
successful duck plants in the country contain neither pond 
