Vol. LVI. No. 2458. 
NEW YORK, MARCH 6, 1897 
$1.00 PER YEAR. 
SIX TONS OF DUCK PER ACRE. 
WITH WHITE CHICKENS THROWN IN. 
What a Rhode Island Man is Doing. 
Part I. 
Mr. George Pollard of Pawtucket, R. I , has been in 
the duck raising business for the past five years, and, 
last season, raised 5,000 ducks, as well as 800 chickens. 
His success in duck raising since the start has been 
greater than that of most beginners, and he now has 
the business on a substantial and profitable basis. 
He had been a buyer of live poultry for the market 
for years, and raised fowls to a considerable extent, 
but did not attempt to raise ducks extensively until 
a man in Pawtucket having an extensive plant for 
raising ducks decided to give up the business and 
sell out. This man, who was formerly a bookkeeper, 
after a few years’ experience on a farm, built a dwell- 
inghouse, barn, a poultryhouse, 160x15 feet, and 
other buildings. His idea was to make a living from 
500 fowls kept 
in this build¬ 
ing. After a 
trial of this 
plan for a few 
years the hens 
were discarded 
and duck rais¬ 
ing was taken 
up. After four 
years’ experi¬ 
ence in raising 
ducks, he was 
obliged to sell 
the place at a 
great sacrifice. 
Mr. Pollard 
bought it, to- 
gethei with the 
breeding ducks 
incubators, etc. 
on the place, 
made many 
alterations and 
commenced the 
business. The 
first season he 
secured but a 
very small per 
cent of fertile 
eggs. The 
vitality of the 
stock was so 
low that the 
young ducks 
that were 
hatched were weak, and had hard work to live, and 
were not reared at a profit. This breeding stock w r as 
then put out on a farm for the summer where they 
had free range and every liberty, in hopes that they 
would improve and do better when brought back in 
the winter; but as the results were no more satis¬ 
factory the following season, they were all killed and 
new, vigorous stock was procured. The third season’s 
operations were more of a success, and a fine lot of 
ducks were raised, about 3,300 in number. 
The fourth season, Mr. Pollard was again troubled 
by too many infertile eggs and by those having weak 
germs ; therefore, he secured a farm on which were a 
pond and numerous marshes, built a duckhouse, and 
placed his breeding ducks thereon. The eggs incu¬ 
bated that season were all laid by the ducks that 
were, on this farm. It is now five years since Mr. 
Pollard commenced to rear ducks artificially. During 
this time, he has made many changes, has doggedly 
studied the problem, and the result last season, 5 000 
ducks raised from 190 laying ducks and 40 or more 
drakes, as well as a good many eggs sold for hatching, 
shows that be has secured a good measure of success. 
The Fixtures; a Model Brooder. 
On the place was a large two-story house 160 feet 
long and 15 feet wide, with slanting front and back 
and much glass in the front of both stories. The 
lower story was intended for keeping hens and the 
upper story for raising little chickens. The former 
owner had later installed ducks in the lower part and 
given up the use of the wind-exposed loft, with its 
many windows, for brooding purposes. By tearing 
out some of the elaborate fixtures to save labor, and 
enlarging the pens, the lower part of this house made 
very good quarters for laying ducks. The shape of 
this house, however, should not be followed as a pat¬ 
tern. A slanting front and back are undesirable on 
account of the liability of the windows to leak dur¬ 
ing a rain storm, and because the back remains wet 
longer after a storm. Snow also lodges on these 
slanting windows, and must be brushed off after a 
snow storm. 
A brooderhouse 90 feet long by 13 feet wide had 
been built on the ground, when duck raising was 
taken up, and although this building has a slanting 
front, it is, in other respects, admirable and, after 
certain changes made in the original brooder cover 
by Mr. Pollard, it seems to be as well adapted to its 
purpose as any piped brooderhouse that I have ever 
seen. Instead of a system of hot-water pipes under 
the brooder covers and above the chickens, the pipes 
are sunk in a wide trench. Over this trench are the 
brooder floors, and projecting through these floors 
and extending nearly up to the brooder cover, are 
three 1%-inch pipes through which the heated air 
from the trench arises and escapes close under the top 
of the brooder cover. These pipes are several inches 
apart, and in one end of the brooder, and the brooders 
are large and open in front, with the exception of the 
usual curtain. The brooder floors are heated some¬ 
what, and they extend outside of the brooder. This 
gives a combination of bottom heat with hot air under 
the brooder cover. If the air escaping from the pipes 
is too hot, the chicken simply gets farther away from 
them The warm floor which extends outside of the 
brooder enables them to keep warm when resting on 
this floor and breathing the cold air outside the 
brooder. The trench confines the heat so that the 
building is heated very little, as most of what there is 
goes first into the brooders. In running the furnace 
or boiler for this arrangement, the operator must 
simply see that there is enough heat, and the chicken 
will do the rest. If there be too much heat, the 
chicken can move away from the pipes toward the 
cool end, or go out from under the cover where the 
floor is warm but the air is cool. With most brooders 
where the bare pipes are over the chickens’ backs 
they are either too hot or too cold much of the time, 
and where the brooder boxes are closed in front, 
there is as much danger of getting the brooder too 
hot as of running it too cool. In either case, the 
chicken has to 
stand it, he can¬ 
not help him¬ 
self. Doubtless 
more harm has 
been done by 
too hot brood¬ 
ers and over¬ 
heated houses 
than by the 
brooders being 
run too low. 
This arrange¬ 
ment seems as 
free from these 
objections and 
as near nature 
as anything I 
have seen in 
the line of a 
house brooder 
heated with a 
hot-water sys¬ 
tem. As is the 
case with cer 
tain single 
lamp brooders, 
the chicken or 
duckling does 
the regulating 
to suit himself, 
and can keep 
himself com¬ 
fortable if 
there be plenty 
of heat. He 
need not bake or suffer from extremes of heat and 
cold. 
In this house, the pens are 3 x 10 feet with a passage¬ 
way along the back of the house. Mr. Pollard has 
put 150 ducklings into each pen, but prefers to put 75 
in a pen 4 x 10 feet. The out-door run connected 
with each brooder pen is 40 feet long. In pleasant 
weather in the winter, the chickens or ducklings are 
given a run in this yard once each day. The brooder 
covers are placed at different heights to accommodate 
different sizes of chickens. The difference in these 
graduations is about two inches. Tbe pipes through 
which the hot air escapes into the brooder are pro¬ 
tected with netting to prevent the chickens getting 
against them or on top of them where the covers are 
elevated. It takes about a ton of coal per month to 
run the boiler when the house is in full operation. 
Two men are employed the year through besides the 
picker. 
Not only have 5,000 ducklings been turned out of 
here, but 800 chickens as well. The chickens were, 
PARTIAL VIEW OF MR. POLLARD’S DUCK BREEDING HOUSE AND YARDS. Fio. 74. 
