American Agriculturist, September 1,1923 
145 
World 
.Roofing 
sBfijjw »t Factory 
WJ0& jg k^Prlcca 
r.>- 
"Reo” Cluster Metal Shingles, 
:ated, Standing Seam, Painted oi 
Ducks By the Acre 
(Continued from page 139) 
until an hour or two after daylight, 
when practically all eggs will have been 
laid and the ducks can be turned out. 
“Do the ducks hatch their own 
eggs?” I asked. 
“No. Artificial incubation is used 
exclusively by duck farmers,” I was in¬ 
formed. “The Pekin is not much of a 
sitter, and besides we want to keep all 
the ducks on the job laying eggs. We 
set the eggs at least once a week and 
usually twice a week during the period 
of heavy laying, using large, hot water 
machines with a capacity of several 
thousand eggs at one time. It takes 
duck eggs four weeks to hatch, or one 
week longer than hen eggs.” 
The average Pekin duck will lay 
from 80 to 120 eggs in a season. An 
incubator capacity sufficient to take 
care of the hatching eggs at the season 
of flush production requires space in 
the machines for 25 eggs from each 
breeding duck. The incubators are op¬ 
erated about the same as when hen 
eggs are being hatched, except that 
during the latter part of the hatch 
moisture is applied more freely. 
Factory methods are employed in 
rearing the ducklings. As soon as 
the baby ducks are well dried off after 
hatching they are removed to the 
primary brooder house. This is a long 
house heated by hot water and divided 
into pens, each capable of holding 100 
to 125 ducklings. Each pen is pro¬ 
vided with a hover or cover over the 
hot water pipes, which provides a warm 
place to which the ducklings can al¬ 
ways have access. The pens in the 
first third of the house, where the heat¬ 
er is located, and which is the warm¬ 
est portion, are used for the youngest 
ducklings and are five by ten feet in 
size. The temperature under the 
hovers of these pens must be main¬ 
tained at about 90 degrees. 
As new ducklings are hatched and 
brought to the brooder house, those 
already there are moved down the 
house to make room for the new¬ 
comers. The pens into which they are 
moved are six feet wide, to provide 
for the larger size which they have 
attained. Later they are moved into 
the final third of the house, where the 
pens are seven feet wide, and where 
the temprature under the hovers need 
not be over 80. 
I noticed that the brooder houses 
were all equipped with electric lights 
and asked the reason. 
“Ducks may not look it, but they are 
nervous creatures and afraid to go to 
bed in the dark,” I was told. “If any¬ 
thing startles them in the night they 
are likely to stampede, surging back 
and forth in the pens and trampling 
over one another. In this stampede 
many will be seriously injured. Even 
with lights, one must be careful in 
moving about among the ducks at night 
for rapidly-moving shadows are likely 
to throw them into a panic.” 
The baby ducklings are fed and 
watered for the first time when they 
are from 24 to 36 hours old. The first 
feed of the day is given about 6 a. m.; 
this is followed by a second feed at 
noon, and the final feed at about 4:30 
or 5 o’clock in the afternoon. Some 
growers feed four or five times a day 
when the ducklings are young, but per¬ 
fectly satisfactory results with less la¬ 
bor can be obtained with the smaller 
number of feedings. 
A good ration in use consists of 
equal parts, by measure, of corn meal, 
bran and stale bread or shredded wheat 
waste to which is added one part in 
ten of beef scrap or cooked fish and 
one part in six of finely-cut tender 
green feed. It is important also that 
sand be added to the ration until the 
ducklings can get out into the yards, 
where they can secure this material for 
themselves. This ration can be con¬ 
tinued until the ducklings leave the 
third brooder house and are put in 
' the fattening lots, when a more fatten¬ 
ing ration is used. The feed for both 
ducklings and breeding ducks is thor¬ 
oughly mixed in power .dough mixers, 
using enough hot water to make the 
mixture stick together. 
As soon as the ducklings are ready 
to leave the third brooder house, they 
are placed in the fattening yards. As 
a rule, about 100 ducklings are yarded 
together. By this time the ducklings 
are well feathered out and here, for 
the first time, they are allowed access 
to the water yards. The proportion 
of corn meal in the ration is doubled, 
but the practice of feeding three times 
a day is continued. Drinking water no 
longer need be supplied as the duck¬ 
lings quench their thirst from the water 
in which they swim. 
It is very important to market the 
ducklings at the proper time, usually 
when they are between the ages of ten 
and twelve weeks. / At this age they 
undergo a partial molt on the neck and 
breast, giving them a rather rough 
look. Unless they are killed within a 
week after this molt starts they will 
begin to lose flesh and it will take an 
additional five or six weeks to get them 
back in market condition again. Buy¬ 
ing feed for this extra period is not 
good business. 
When ready for slaughter the duck¬ 
lings are driven into a small pen, where 
they can be caught easily. Each duck¬ 
ling is carefully examined as caught 
to make sure that it is in good market 
condition. If the breast is smooth and 
full so that the breast bone cannot be 
readily felt, the duckling is in prime 
condition. If it is not in proper con¬ 
dition it is returned to the fattening 
yards and fed longer. 
Killing begins early in the morning 
and is usually finished for the day by 
noon or soon after. Eight or ten duck¬ 
lings are hung up by the legs at a time 
and bled by cutting the large veins 
in the throat. After they are thor¬ 
oughly bled they are taken down and 
turned over to the pickers. The picker, 
usually a woman, selects a bird and 
takes it for scalding to a large kettle 
of water maintained at a temperature 
just below the boiling point. Holding 
the carcass by the head and feet, the 
picker plunges it into the hot water, 
sousing it up and down until the water 
penetrates the feathers and causes 
them to come out easily. She then 
holds the duck on her lap, or on a 
board, and plucks off the feathers as 
rapidly as possible, leaving the main 
wing and tail feathers and those of 
the neck part way from the head to 
the body on the carcass. The most 
troublesome part of the plucking is the 
removal of the down. Seventy-five 
ducklings is a good day’s work for an 
experienced picker. 
The feathers are an important by¬ 
product of duck plants. As they are 
plucked they are thrown into a large 
box beside which the pickers sit. At 
the close of each day’s picking, these 
feathers are taken to a well-ventilated 
room and spread out on the floor in 
a layer not over three or four inches 
deep. After they have dried out fair¬ 
ly well they are scraped up in a pile 
and again spread out, this operation 
being repeated until they are thorough¬ 
ly dry. They are then placed in bur¬ 
lap sacks and are ready for shipping. 
It is important that the feathers be 
thoroughly dry so that they will not 
heat and mould, in which condition 
their value is greatly lessened. The 
feathers are sold to manufacturers 
who use them mainly in making pil¬ 
lows. Each duckling will yield a suffi¬ 
cient amount of feathers to pay for 
the cost of picking or possibly a little 
more. 
We asked Mr. Tuttle to tell us how 
the ducks are packed and shipped to 
market. 
“The most important thing about 
marketing is to be sure that they are 
cooled until every particle of animal 
heat is removed from the carcasses,” 
he said. “This is accomplished by 
throwing the ducks in water and leav¬ 
ing them there for several hours. If 
cold running spring water is available, 
it will answer the purpose very nicely. 
If not, ice must be used in the water. 
(Continued on page 151) 
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