SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR 
26 & 
Duck sets faithfully and may as well be permitted to hatch 
her own young, 
■ 4th, Method of Destroying Foxnl Dice . — The insects 
which infest the setting hens may be easily destroyed by 
thoroughly sprinkling the nest and wetting the fowl even 
to the skin with a strong decoction, made by pouring ho: 
water on a good handful of common leaf tobacco, mixeC 
when cold with a table spoonfbl of spirits of turpentine, 
and double the quantity of gunpovvder. It will be well 
also occassionally to take away their old nest and make a 
,^ew one of fresh hay or straw, 
5th, Duck Coops^ Food and manner of Rearing the 
Yuti/ig,— Let your coop be made pretty large, say three 
or four feet in length and three in depth; let it be well 
shingled so as to exclude all water, and have a good piten 
towards the front ; let it be light on three sides and barred 
in front with a slide below the lower bar, so as to retain 
the ducks in unfavorable weather, A space of 10 or 12 
feet square, formed of common boards set up edgewist 
will, when you have not much room in youryard, suffice 
for fifty ducks. Keep making coops in proportion as 
your ducks increase in numbers, and endeavor to keep the 
different sizes separate, the first urood, early in the 
spring, requires for a few days the warmth of the hen’s 
body and she should not be made to take care of more 
than twenty or thirty ; a little later in the season the 
young that are then hatched do not require the services oi 
their foster mother, and may, from the beginning, be placed 
in a coop by themselves to the number of fifty Young 
Muscovy Ducks may be treated in the same way, and 
they and the mongrels and English Ducks may ail be in- 
discriminately reared together. As soon as your young 
ducks are hatched, let them be placed together for a few 
hours in a basket containing some warm inside lining, and 
when they have sufficient strength, place them with the 
hen in the coops; feed them with meat or animal 
food of any kind chopped fine with a common chop- 
ping knife; for convenience I have usually had it 
boiled; a little rice-flour or corn meal may be mixed with 
it, and the latter maybe increased it you have but little 
meat; let this be continued for three weeks, and they 
are out of danger and can be raised on any kind of fond ; 
still it is to 6e observed that ducks will, in all cases, thrive 
better on animal food, and where this can be conveniently 
obtained, it may as well be given them. Those planters 
who live near our seacoast, by running a tight board fence 
across any small branch of salt water, and placing in the 
centre a fish trap made of laths, can easily procure a suf 
ficient quantity of fishes and crabs to feed all their young 
poultry, A man with a cast-net could in half an hour do 
the same, I have known persons in the interior of the 
country substitute squirrels, rabbits and evfn venisnti ; 
and one gentleman fed his young ducks on the fltsh of al- 
ligators, thus rendering that which was a nuisance suo- 
servient to his profit. When your young ducks begin to 
be tolerably feathered on the sides, w’hich will be in fivt^ 
or six weeks, they may then be turned into the common 
poultry-yard, always bearing in mind that those which 
are best fed and obtain most animal food thiive the fast- 
est, 
I have not treated of diseases to which ducks are sub- 
ject, since by the above treatment I have generally found 
them healthy. As this is along essay and may be too 
great a tax on your readers to peruse, I would give in a 
single line the substance of my direcions f'»r the success- 
ful tearing of young ducks; — Give them, animal fuod^ and 
keep them, dry. 
Charleston, July 29th, 1857, 
Editors Southern Cultivator — Gentlemen — In an- 
swer to your inquiries in respect to iny mode of raising 
Pucks, 1 have had the above copietl, and send it to you 
with a few notes in reference to my views on the above, 
alter the test of many years: 
It is now about 30 years since my early experiments;, 
were made an l 24 years since they were first published. 
I do not see anything of importance in the above article tc 
correct. It has been frequently republished in our various 
agricultural journals, and I have not heard of any want of 
success among those who adopted this mode. It w^as 
translated into the French and Gentian languages and cir- 
culated in tracts among the poulterers in France and Ger- 
many, and the markets of their cities are supplied with-’ 
many ducks raised by this process. I have this - 
mode without the intermission of a single year with ViWJ- 
form succe.ss. The number of ducks to be raised annually 
for (he use nf my family 1 limited to 100. Some seasons 
when the poultry-yaid was left altogether to servants, I 
fell a little short of that number, but generally went beyond 
it. The present season I gave half an hour of each day to 
the poultry-yard, wdiich was to me an amusement and re- 
creaiion. I commenced in January with 7 English Ducks- 
-nd 2 Drakes. Tfie cheapest food I could obtain in these 
dear times was rice-flour. Wheat bran or corn meal wilf 
uo equally weil. A small quantity of the lights of animals 
nbrained from the butchers was mixed with their food. 
They began to lay early and some 50 eggs were lost by 
the frost. Alter having about eighty young English 
Ducks hatched, I concluded to encourage my old stock to 
present me with hybrids ( mongrels as they are here called) 
[ removed the English Drakes; divided the Ducks into 2 
parcels and gave to each group a Muscovy Drake that 
had been reared the previous season in the yard without 
associating with any of his own species. From this con- 
nexion only about two thirds of the eggs are impregnated. 
But the birds are much larger and finer and very hardy. 
The Mallard, of which our English Duck is a de-cendant,, 
breeds far to the north ; the Muscovy, on the other hands 
comes from the tropics. The descendants from these op- 
posite constitutions v/ould, as I supposed, be better adapt- 
ed to our climate than either of the originals. This I have 
found by long experience to be the case. This season there 
were raised in my yard 150 ducks; a large majority are 
hybrids: I have not lost a single duck, except by an ac- 
cidental injury. The early broods were full grown in the 
I itier end of May, and we had the first pair on the 30th 
of that month, and have had them on ihe table every week 
since. An English Duck when well fed will lay about 
50 eggs during the season. Mine exceeded that number 
this year 1 gave away about 100 eggs and 50 young 
ducks, and my poultry-yard is stilt stocked with ducks 
from the large mongrel drakes nearly the size of a goose to^ 
those of three days old. 
An important matter in raising ducks is to hatch the 
eggs. My hatching establishment is separated from the 
c'Mnmon pouhry -yard. The nests are in moveable boxes, 
which are taken out and scoured as each young brood is 
Hatched By this means I am exempted from troublesome 
insects. My out buildings are raised above the ground 
ai)d with good cats I am not annoyed by either rats or 
mice, 
I this year made an experiment in producing hybrids 
between the English Drake and Muscovy Duck. The 
eggs proved as prolific as those of the opposite cross, but 
the young, after two months old, are so small compared 
with the other, that 1 cannot advise this plan. 
Yours truly, B. 
P. S. — The earliest hatchings should be kept for the 
next year’s stock. They are always the largest. Ducks 
of a year old are the best layers. 
All su’ scrip ims lo ii e Sout iern Cvdlivalof 
gi I with the January number. 
