Breeding Aylesbury Ducks. 
537 
are from twenty to thirty feet high, and well ventilated. The weight of the drake is considered 
good at nine pounds and the duck at eight pounds, but these weights are rather exceptional, 
and many persons consider seven pounds a fair average. I once exhibited a pen of three birds 
that weighed thirty-two pounds when they left home, and even when judged at Birmingham, 
where they won the cup (extra prize), still weighed thirty pounds. These were the heaviest pen 
I ever had.” 
The following additional notes, written in December, 1889, are kindly added by Mr. R. R. 
Fowler for the present edition of this work, and give interesting particulars as to present ex- 
perience and practice in the Aylesbury district : — 
“ Much larger quantities of these ducks continue to be bred than twenty years ago : the trade 
is, indeed, enormously increasing in the Vale of Aylesbury and adjoining districts. In one little 
village where there are about thirty duckers, I have seen over 8,000 ducks fattening at once, and, 
from information I collected, not less than 30,000 are reared at that one place in the season. 
“ The system now adopted of getting them to market is very simple, and works well. The 
railway companies provide the breeders with ‘ flats,’ in which the ducklings are packed — plucked, of 
course. The duckers are provided with labels by the various salesmen, and they send to which- 
ever they choose, generally changing now and then to see if any advantage is to be gained in 
price. Twice a week the company’s vans call and collect the flats, which are simply placed ready 
for them in the road, with a note attached of the number of ducks they contain. The railway 
company not only delivers the flats to London, but collects the amount realised from the sales- 
man, handing his cheque, with account of prices and deduction for commission, &c. Their 
inclusive charge for fetching, delivering the birds to market, and collecting, is one penny per bird. 
“ In reply to your questions, I do not think that there is any noticeable increase in the average 
number of eggs produced by each duck. 1 consider the average number of eggs laid by an 
Aylesbury duck in her first year to be about 60 ; a Pekin will average 50 ; and a Rouen 45. 
The stock ducks cost about twopence per head per week to keep. They should be kept poor till 
just before laying-time, and then pushed on with good barley-meal, brewer’s grains, and greaves. 
Sudden changes in food afterwards, even alteration in the quality of the meal, will sometimes 
cause moulting and stop laying. The average price of the eggs, if contracted for throughout the 
whole season, is now raised to 4s. per dozen, but during the present month (December) they 
are making 12s. for sittings only purchased then. The duckling costs about is. 6d. to feed from 
the egg till fit for the market. The average price realised has fallen, owing probably rather to the 
large increase in production than to any decrease in demand. But the earliest ducklings still 
command a very long price, and 20s. and 22s. a couple was returned by some salesmen last spring. 
“ Some of the largest duckers are now using incubators ; but most of them still employ 
hens. It is a curious fact that ducklings are prepared for market more quickly in the early 
months of the year than they can be later on — say, in June and July. The best floors for duck- 
houses are concrete of gravel or chalk. After the rearing season is over, it is customary to 
turn a sow and her pigs into the houses, where they are allowed to rout up the floors and fairly 
wallow in the mire which they soon make of them. They are kept in them for a fortnight or 
three weeks, to purify the place ! ” 
The following additional notes on the rearing and exhibition of Aylesbury Ducks are sum- 
marised from a series of articles in Fowls by Mr. Henry Digby, of Huddersfield, who has been one 
of the most successful exhibitors during recent years, and whose hints arc specially valuable 
because his whole available space is only five acres, and this a heavy clay soil, which has sometimes 
been considered destructive to the colour of the bill. 
