4io 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
June 17 
“ Uttil what age do you keep the breeders ?” 
“ Three or four years. I have some five years old, 
but I shan’t keep them any longer. They don’t lay so 
well when they get so old. The eggs hatch better, 
however, from old than from young ducks ” 
“ Do you have any trouble from the ducks laying in 
the water outside ? ” 
“No, they always come into the house to lay, but 
we generally keep them shut in during the night, and 
they lay before going out.” 
“ Do you pick your breeders ? ” 
“No, not until we get through with them and kill 
them.” 
About the Egg of a Duck. 
“ Are any of your houses floored ? ” 
“ No, only with the sandy soil, which makes an ex¬ 
cellent floor. We cut a great deal of salt hay on the 
meadows, and use this for bedding in the houses, and 
uoder the brooders.” 
“ How many eggs will your ducks average per 
year ?” 
“ One hundred and thirty-five.” 
“ Do you hatch them all in your own incubators ? ” 
“Oh, no; we couldn’t with our present capacity, 
and we couldn’t take care of the ducks if we could. 
Large numbers are shipped. We fill our own incu¬ 
bators first, but we make a specialty of furnishing 
eggs for hatching, and ship a great many.” 
“ Do you find ready sales for your surplus ? " 
“Yes, we haven’t been able to fill the orders this 
year. I have returned about as much money as I have 
kept.” 
“ Do you guarantee that the eggs you sell will hatch 
well ? ” 
“Not much. I don’t guarantee that any of them 
will hatch. I guarantee their fertility, and their safe 
arrival, but that is as far as I can go. My eggs are 
remarkably fertile, and, as I am hatch¬ 
ing thousands of them every month my¬ 
self, I can always tell just how they 
ought to hatch.” 
“ What prices do you get for incubator 
eggs ? ” 
“ Seven dollars per 100, or $60 per 1,000, 
packed and delivered at the station.” 
The Dinner That Makes the Duck. 
“ What do you feed principally to the 
breeding stock ? ” 
“Corn meal and bran or No. 2 flour, 
about equal parts, perhaps a little more 
than half of the mixture meal, wheat, 
buckwheat, etc., mixed up with water. 
We also feed vegetables and green stuff 
when we have them. We can’t get vege¬ 
tables enough, all we raised last year 
were gone before spring.” 
“ What vegetables do you use ?” 
“ Heets, generally, though any kind 
of green stuff will do. Chopped clover is good if 
vegetables are not to be had.” 
“ What do you mean by No. 2 flour ? ” 
“It is what is called middlings, sharps, shipstuff, 
etc., in different places.” 
“ Do-you cook your feed ? ” 
“ Not unless we are feeding vegetables.” 
“ Don’t you consider it an advantage to cook? ” 
“No; some of the other duck breeders cook for 
their young stock, but we grow just as large ducks, 
and our stock do just as well as theirs, so I don’t see 
that there is any advantage. If I thought it better, I 
would do it.” 
“ Do you feed any fish ? ” 
“ Not to our young stock. We can’t get enough for 
the breeders Of course we cook that.” 
“ Is there any objection to feeding fish to the young 
ducks intended for market ? ” 
“None at all, if it is stopped a short time before 
killing. A duck makes such rapid growth, and its 
system changes so rapidly, that it doesn’t take long 
for everything of the kind to become eliminated from 
its system.” 
“ What meat do you feed when you can’t get fish ? ” 
“ Beef scrap. Some duck breeders living in the in¬ 
terior use this altogether, and it is just as good as fish, 
though not so cheap as the latter.” 
“ Do you feed the young ducks the same as the 
br eders ? ” 
“ Something the same, though we don’t give them 
much bran at first, as it loosens the bowels too much. 
At first we give equal parts of corn meal and mid¬ 
dlings, with stale bread, crackers, or anything else of 
the kind that comes handy, with green food. We also 
mix a small quantity of sand with the food. Some¬ 
times we give bread soaked in milk. After the first 
week we give half corn meal, and half bran and mid¬ 
dlings mixed equal parts with about one-sixth or one- 
eighth beef scraps and a liberal allowance of green 
food. The ducks are put into the pens to fatten when 
about six weeks old. Then they are fed two-thirds 
meal and one-thirc bran and middlings, and the green 
food. They are also fed some cracked corn and 
oyster shells.” 
“ At what weight, or age, do you kill ? ” 
“ When they weigh about five pounds dressed. 
They reach this weight, and some of them will weigh 
5Ki 5%, or even 6 pounds, at 8 to 10 weeks old. We 
are now killing some that are only seven weeks old, 
and they will weigh five pounds. We are killing 
them a little younger because the price is high now, 
but likely to decline soon, so we want to get in all 
we can at the high prices.” 
Some Size to This Business. 
“ How many young ducks do you raise annually ?” 
“ About 20,000. We now have out about 8,300, but 
we started a month late and the ducks ought to lay 
later than usual.” Ten days later Mr. Hallock wrote 
me that he then had out over 10,000. 
“ What incubators do you use ? ” 
“ Prairie State almost entirely. We will go into 
the incubati r room and see tl em. We have an incu¬ 
bator room that can’t be beaten. This is in charge 
of Mr. G. A. McFetridge, an expert in this business. 
We have 30 300-egg incubators running constantly. 
The walls are of brick, double, with a four-inch air 
space between. The earth is banked up at the sides 
and ends, The floor is cemented. At one end is a 
wing containing a room for packing eggs, etc., while 
the room containing the incubators is just beyond. 
The latter is 24x50 feet, inside measure.” 
“ How many brooder houses have you ?” 
“ Three, with a capacity of 6,000 ducklings at once. 
In all our buildings there are about 20,000 square feet 
of floor space.” 
“Have you reached the limit of your ambition, or 
do you intend to extend the business still further ?” 
“I shall probably extend it further, and I haven’t 
got the buildings in shape as I want them yet, or as I 
had expected to have them this spring. Here is a 
building that we have been moving, but didn’t have 
time for straightening up before the spring work 
came on, and we had our hands full caring for the 
ducks. It has been impossible to get help, and the 
weather has been such that we couldn’t do much if we 
had it. We had intended to build a track across the 
yards containing our breeding stock, on which to run 
a car to carry the feed to them, which would make 
this a short job. Now we have to wheel it out in 
wheelbarrows. It tabes time to gc t all these things 
in shape.” 
The Picked and their Pickers. 
“ Do you hire the pickers by the day or the piece ? ” 
“ By the piece ; we pay now four cents each. I have 
been told that some of the other breeders are paying 
five, and if they do, we shall have to pay the same. 
This will make a difference of $10 a week in our ex¬ 
penses, as we ship about 1,000 a week.” 
“ How many can a good picker handle in a day ?” 
“ From 20 to 25 or 30, taking them as they come. 
Some claim to have picked 35 or more, but this must 
have been done by selecting the best birds, which is 
not fair to other pickers. There is a vast difference 
in ducks so far as ease of picking is concerned.” 
“ Do the pickers kill their own ducks ? ” 
“ No; they are killed and delivered in the picking 
house ready to pick. Let’s go in there. Here, handy 
by, is where we kill them. As you see, a pole of any 
desired length is spiked on top of two posts about five 
feet high. From this strings are suspended having 
loops at the ends. In these the ducks are suspended 
by the feet, and bled by sticking in the mouths. 
Under each string a peg is driven in the ground, to 
which a short piece of wire is fastened, having the 
end bent into a hook. This is fastened into the duck’s 
nose, and prevents its flapping around and soiling its 
feathers with blood. The feathers must be perfectly 
clean if highest prices are to be obtained.” 
“ Do you scald the ducks ? ” 
“ Yes, and then pick as quickly as possible. The 
feathers of the head and part of the neck are left on ; 
also the flight feathers of the wings and the tails. 
After picking, they are thrown into hot water, then 
into ice water where they remain until it is convenient 
to pack them.’’ 
“ How many feathers do you get from each duck ? ” 
“ About two ounces.” 
“ What are they worth per pound ?” 
“ Forty cents. You see that about pays the cost of 
picking.” 
“ Where do you sell your ducks ? ” 
“Mostly in New York. The summer hotels around 
here take some in the season, other private customers 
take an occasional pair, and we sell a good many for 
breeders, but the bulk of our stock goes to the com¬ 
mission-men in the city.” 
“ What prices do you get ? ” 
“ From between 40 and 50 cents per pound, down to 
16, though we don’t often get so low as the latter 
price.” 
“ What do you estimate as the whole cost per pound 
of placing the ducks on the market, counting every¬ 
thing excepting the interest on the money invested ? ” 
“ Well, I don’t know that I ever figured it that way. 
but I should say perhaps 10 cents a pound.’ 
“ Do you consider ducks more profitable to raise 
this way than chickens? ’ 
“ Dh, yes ; by far. We don’t need such warm build¬ 
ings for ducks. The partitions, etc., are lower and cost 
less, and the houses are easier to get around in. There 
is less loss from disease. It isn’t so much work to care 
for them, and they make more than twice the weight 
in the same time. I put a lot of hen eggs in my incu¬ 
bators this year before the ducks began laying, in or¬ 
der to keep them running. They were hanging around 
a long time, and then I didn’t make much 
from them. No more chickens for me.” 
“ Do you keep many hens ? ” 
“ About 600 to furnish eggs for incu¬ 
bators for which I have a good demand.” 
“ Do the methods of the other breeders 
differ much from yours ? ” 
“Very little, except that those on the 
other side of the village cook their feed, 
but, as I make just as heavy ducks in 
just as short a time, I don’t think that 
it would pay me to do it.” 
“ I suppose you buy your feed at whole¬ 
sale ? ” 
“Yes, and shall soon begin buying by 
the car-load. It takes an immense 
amount of feed to keep us going, and all 
the retailers in the neighborhood couldn’t 
keep us running more than a day or two 
if we should run short.” 
“ How much help do you have ? ” 
“ I have four men besides Mr. McFet¬ 
ridge, who runs the incubators, and it keeps them 
all busy.” 
The water supply for all purposes comes from an 
elevated tank into which the water is pumped by an 
aeromotor wind engine from a well. Across a long 
row of yards filled with young ducks, a pipe was ex¬ 
tended, having an opening over a trough in each yard. 
As we passed here, Mr. Hallock turned a faucet in the 
pipe at the end, and as the water forced the air out, 
it produced a whistling sound, the ducks in each yard, 
beginning with the first, made a break for the trough, 
tumbling over each other in their eagerness, until 
thousands of the white-feathered creatures were 
crowding around the troughs. It was a sight worth 
going a long distance to see. 
A Bad Climate for Tarred Paper. 
After taking dinner with Mr. Hallock and his es¬ 
timable wife, we went to call on Mr. E. O. Wilcox, 
whose farm adjoins that of Mr. Hallock. His methods 
of hatching, feeding and handling do not differ mater¬ 
ially from those of his neighbor. He doesn’t keep 
quite so many ducks, though he has more hens, a 
large number of which are pure breeds on which he 
has taken many prizes. He had about 7,000 duck¬ 
lings out when I visited him. 
“ How is it that you have so many more young 
ducas than your neighbor in proportion to the number 
of old ones ? ” 
“Because mine began laying earlier. My houses 
were more sheltered, consequently warmer. This 
shows the importance of warm houses to secure early 
eggs.” 
“I see your houses are built mostly of matched 
lumber, without any tarred paper. Couldn’t you 
build a house cheaper that would answer the same 
purpose, by using a cheaper quality of lumber and 
tarred paper ? ” 
“ \es, the first cost would be less; but tarred paper, 
though of the best, doesn’t stand our climate when 
put on the outside. No matter how well it is put on, 
