
Bernicle geese bred, for the first time in North America, by the author on his game farm at Echo Valley. 
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Practical Game Breeding 
What Kind of Birds to Ratse. 
HILE there are very nearly one 
WV thousand commercial fur 
breeders in this country, there 
are not over a score of commercial 
game breeders. You can even count 
the big commercial game breeders in 
this country on your fingers. Yet there 
is a very great call for game for 
parks, zoos; for release for stocking 
purposes; as a hobby. 
During this month of December, con- 
sider that non-migratory game must be 
fed in order to be induced to stay by 
you. You will not want them to fly 
away to some other more attractive 
estate. To keep these birds with you 
during the winter, you must not only 
provide food, but you must give them 
water and shelter. Jack Miner, for 
instance, has no marsh, creek, nor lake 
for waterfowl, so none stay with him 
and breed. The geese and ducks make 
his place their resting place on the 
long flights north and south. How- 
ever, thousands of doves fly to his place 
every night, from all over the sur- 
rounding country, because he has pro- 
vided them with a dense shelter of 
Scotch pine, red cedar, and white pine 
where they roost and where they nest. 
Then, too, he shoots the hawks and 
owls that are always eating them. 
There are two ways of having your 
place stocked with game birds. One 
is to attract the birds, but, of course, 
to attract the migratory birds you 
would need to be on their line of flight. 
The other is to buy birds from im- 
porters and breeders and breed them 
By GEORGE HEBDEN CORSAN 
yourself. If you are a city man and 
are about to retire for the good of 
your health to the country and have 
selected game farming as your future 
work so that you will be about as much 
as possible, without excessive heavy 
work, you will find that you have a 
particular liking for certain birds or 
animals. For instance, a Norwegian 
fancied the breeding of musk oxen, se- 
cured a dozen animals, bred them, and 
recently sold a dozen and a half to the 
Canadian Government at a good profit 
and, incidentally, made quite a name 
for himself, for no one else in the world 
had succeeded in this work, although 
Buffalo Jones gave his life trying to 
do so. Also, this breeder of musk oxen 
may have been the means of saving 
this animal from extinction. Mr. C. 
J. Blazier, of Brooks, Alberta, took a 
fancy to antelopes and has succeeded 
remarkably well with these animals, 
recently selling at least a dozen tame 
antelopes to William Randolph Hearst 
for his California estate. But these 
two men are the extremes. 
MAN wrote me recently that he 
wanted to farm frogs on a large 
scale and he wanted information as 
to what birds he could raise at the 
same time, that would not be incom- 
patible with frog farming. I advised 
him that wild geese of all kinds would 
not eat frogs nor their spawn, but that 
ducks would do so. Then he wanted 
to know what varieties of geese would 
breed on a big game farm, properly 
Winter Food and Housing Problems 
fenced so that the birds would be pro- 
tected from dogs, foxes, owls, etc., be- 
sides the Canada geese. I told him that 
every kind of wild goose would breed 
in a large meadow by the marsh; that 
I had bred, as a hobby, three of the 
most difficult kinds, lesser snow, blue 
and bernicle, while I hoped to breed the 
white front next year. 
HAT Bendick Bros. at Leduc, Al- 
berta, had bred Hutchins and Ma- 
gellan geese and hoped to breed the 
barhead geese next year. That Mr. 
F. E. Blaauw, of Gooilust, Graveland, 
Holland, has bred the ashy headed, the 
Hawaiian, Emperor, Orinoco, and Dis- 
bar geese. A man in New Jersey has 
bred the bean goose, while the Bronx 
Zoo has bred the. Cereopsis. That I, 
too, would have bred these last named, 
but for dogs and a skunk. The dogs 
killed the gander and the skunk ate the 
eggs. The gander fought bravely, but 
two bad Airedales are too much for 
one bird; though he fought them off, he 
died from his wounds a week later. The 
National Zoo at Washington has bred 
the greater snow goose. Next to the 
whistler swan, I think these birds are 
the most difficult to breed. They are 
anything but hard to raise, but they 
are difficult to breed. However, once a 
breeding strain is started, the rest is 
easy. 
On the other hand, some birds are 
very easy to breed and very difficult 
to raise, unless the exact conditions are 
provided. These birds include some of 
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