394 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
June 6 
A WESTERN DUCK FARM. 
A writer in the Kansas City Packer, 
gives an interesting account of a duck 
farm located about five miles from 
Kansas City. This farm is managed by 
Mr. H. E. Moss, an old railroad man, 
who has about 20 acres of upland soil. 
Mr. Moss says that he began by study¬ 
ing everything he could find relating to 
duck culture, and corresponding with 
the best duck breeders. Then he bought 
60 ducks and 12 drakes to begin with. 
When asked what it cost him to start, 
Mr. Moss said : 
“ My ducks cost me between $250 and 
$300, and I bought them when they were 
about six months old, so that they are 
now only a little more than a year old ; 
yet I have a couple of drakes in my flock 
that I would not sell for $25 apiece. 
“ I bought four incubators, with a 
capacity of about 1,500 eggs, and I built 
a brooder house to accommodate the 
product, for about $40. The price of the 
incubators, of course, depends entirely 
upon the kind you buy. There are a 
great many good ones, and a number of 
very poor ones. They cost all the way 
from $25 to $100 apiece, depending upon 
the manufacture and the capacity. I 
suppose, altogether, I have spent $2,000 
on the ducks, and the preparations for 
multiplying them, but I have done all 
the work myself, and, therefore, at 
much less cost than it can be generally 
estimated.” 
When asked how he stocked the in¬ 
cubators, Mr. Moss said : 
“ I shut my breeding stock up about 
December 5, and commenced to feed 
them carefully with egg-producing food. 
About Christmas time, they commenced 
to lay, and from that time up to two 
weeks ago, I gathered about 38 eggs a 
day, which enabled me to start an in¬ 
cubator every week. My intention with 
four incubators, is to keep one hatching 
all the time. This will give me between 
5,000 and 6,000 ducklings during the sea¬ 
son, which will be about all I care to 
handle at present.” 
“ What do you call an ‘ egg-producing 
food’? ” 
During the laying season, from Jan¬ 
uary 1 to August 1, I feed the ducks 
twice a day, a combination of bran, 
mashed potatoes, and a composition of 
ground blood and poultry bone. In ad¬ 
dition to this, I give them plenty of 
green feed, celery tops, cabbage, etc. 
The former is, I find, preferable. A 
curious thing in that connection is the 
stimulant this dried blood seems to fur¬ 
nish the laying duck. I spoke of getting 
38 eggs a day up to two weeks ago. At 
that time, I ran out of ground blood and 
did not have any for a week. As a re¬ 
sult, my egg production has fallen off to 
12 daily, which I attribute to the failure 
to supply this ingredient in the feed. 
Mr. Moss went on to say that “ the 
ducklings have four different feeds, 
which are a combination of hominy 
chops, which are the germs of corn, 
ground blood and bone meal, with green 
feed, and occasionally some boiled pota¬ 
toes. These articles are combined in 
different proportions, depending upon 
the age of the ducks, and you will see 
that here I have the different formulas 
so that there can be no mistake about 
food, as that might be fatal. I feed No. 
1 for the first four days ; No. 4 for the 
second four days ; No. 5 from that time 
until they are seven weeks old, and then 
I give them No. 6 which is a fat producer, 
and puts them in condition for market 
when they are eight weeks old, when they 
should weigh nine pounds to the pair.’ 
“ How often are the ducklings fed ? ” 
“ These little fellows, until they are 
eight days old, are fed every two hours, 
and still they cry for more. After they 
have passed the eighth day, I feed them 
four times daily, which seems to be about 
enough to keep them growing fat, and 
still leave them appetite enough to do 
considerable skirmishing. You will no¬ 
tice that I give them all the green stuff 
they can eat, and the larger ones I allow 
to run around through this Blue grass 
and oat field, so that, instead of running 
their flesh off, they are laying on the 
fat all the time. There are some little 
fellows over there, five weeks old, that 
will weigh almost three pounds, which 
is, I think you will admit, a pretty good 
weight for a duckling of that age, in 
this country.” 
“ Why is it that you scrape the boards 
so clean after you have fed ? ” 
“ Well, I find that if the feed that is 
not all consumed, is not all gathered up 
very carefully, it remains on the ground 
to be trampled on and finally sour. Its 
presence seems to sicken the stock, and 
if the next meal is put right on top of 
the old one, it does not take very many 
hours for the ducklings to get sick and 
die. Cleanliness is next to godliness, in 
the duck business as in everything else, 
and it is one of the elements of success. 
The two rules that we follow are, clean 
food, and plenty of good, clear water for 
drinking purposes.” 
When asked about the percentage of 
fertile eggs, from his flock, Mr. Moss 
said : 
“ I am told by those who have had ex¬ 
perience, that 350 out of 400 fertile eggs 
should be hatched with proper care. I 
did not have good luck with my first two 
hatches, for the reason that, I used but 
one thermometer in my incubator, and 
maintained the temperature at about 
101 or 102 degrees ; but I found on taking 
out the first hatch, that while the larger 
percentage of the eggs contained duck¬ 
lings which were within about three 
days of hatching, yet I only realized 
about 25 percent. The second incubator 
turned out about the same way, and 
then I commenced to investigate. I put 
in another thermometer in the other 
half of the incubator and put my finger 
on the sore spot immediately ; while the 
temperature was being maintained at 
101 degrees in one part of the incubator, 
it was running up to 105 degrees in the 
other, and this inequality in the heat 
was what was destroying my ducks. I 
have now about 700 ducklings running 
from a few hours to five weeks old, and 
I have 700 eggs which are due to hatch 
in the next two weeks. I am keeping 
the temperature by a thermometer in 
each end of each incubator, and the first 
14 days maintain it at about 101 and 
during the latter half about 103. This 
seems to bring about the best results.” 
He has this to say about markets and 
supplies : 
“ The history of the eastern market 
has been that ducklings which are ready 
for market and in prime condition the 
first of April, will bring 40 cents per 
pound. This is true in both New York, 
Philadelphia and Boston. In our western 
market, heretofore, there has been no 
supply with which to meet a demand of 
this character. I am satisfied that, with 
the stock ready for market at that time, 
the demand will rise right here in Kan¬ 
sas City. Conditions have changed very 
much in the West during the past five 
years, and in the Kansas City market 
particularly. Spring ducks, April 1, are 
a luxury, and while this luxury might 
not have brought the price five years 
ago, I am satisfied that Kansas City will 
prove a good market for my stock, when¬ 
ever I am able to offer it. Of course, I 
don’t expect to market here all of the 
5,000 or 6,000 ducks that I shall produce 
next year, but I know that Kansas City 
will take a portion of them. I would 
welcome competition in the duck line, 
because it would help me to build up a 
better market at home for this class of 
goods, and if my suggestions will be of 
any value, they are freely offered.” 
Flies in Stable. —To keep horn flies 
from cows, add to one pint of tanners’ or 
coal oil, one tablespoonful of crude car¬ 
bolic acid. A bottle or jug is best to 
keep it in, for if kept in an open dish, it 
dries out and gets gummy. Turn out 
what is used at once, and apply with a 
sponge, once in about four or five days, 
ery spot must be touched ; it takes 
me about one to two minutes to cover 
my cow. I used this last summer when 
flies were thickest, and I could hardly see 
a fly on my cow, while the cows by the 
side of her would be covered with flies. 
Grass Lake, Mich. j. c. h. 
Lightning and Hog Cholera.— The 
following comes from Kokomo, Ind. : 
Last week, a farmer named Graff had several 
hogs die of cholera, and proceeded to haul the 
carcasses to the soap makers. While on the way, 
a furious storm came up, accompanied by hard 
thunder and wind. Lightning struck the wagon 
containing the carcasses, and one of the supposed 
dead hogs raised to its feet, jumped off the wagon 
to the ground and ran up the road like mad. It 
was afterward caught and put in a pen in the 
factory yard, where now it is devouring three big 
buckets of swill a day, and squealing for more. 
gHi&fUanroujSi gulimising. 
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