The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1893-11-26
VISIT TOA DUCK FARM
Long Islanders Find Much Profit
in Raising the Birds.
The Eggs Are Hstched by Hens, After
Which the Ducklings Are Brought
Up by Hand-Lively Scenes.

New York Evening Post.
Five hundred ducks amt nothin'," said
the woman. "If you want to see ducks you
want to go up to PASSPORT and see Pye's
place. In one creek there you can see twen-
ty thousand ducks"
I could not act upon this advice at the
time, but 1 bore it in mind, and meantime
I asked questions of other small duck rails
ers as 10 their industry. In many parts Of
New England. especially within one hun
dred miles of a large city, the woman who
wants to make pin money or help along the
farm takes in sewing from the wagons full
Of half~made clothing sent out by the great
sweater shops of New York and Boston.
Thanks to ducks, the women along the
shore in this neighborhood do not help to
keep down tenement-house prices. Their
time is more profitably employed in raising
| poultry for New York. The cost Of the in
dustry is almost next to nothing, for the
| chief food of the ducks comes from the bay
itself; sometimes it is the creek grass that
we find everywhere. sometimes chopped-up
mussels, or fish and all sorts of refuse
crabs, cells, anything that can be made into
duck food-and it may be safely said that
everything may be made into duck food
that grows upon the bottom of this lovely
bay. With ducks selling in the New York
market at from Is to % cents a pound, and
weighing from four to six pounds apiece,
1t is easy to see that a woman who raises
and sends to market one thousand ducks
during the season does not do so badly, for
the transportation charges are not heavy.
I took the first opportunity L found last
summer to make sail for Eastport in order
to see the famous duck farms of which L
had heard SO much; whenever L talked
ducks to any one it was always: eco and
see the duck farms on the Eastport creek"
L had been told that you could hear the
ducks quack for miles around Eastport, and
1 was not wholly unprepared for the sight
that met my eyes when we reached the
in from the main bay at that pretty ham
let. Eastport lies at the end of one of the
most picturesque sheets of water in this
neighbOrhOod-a bay at least two miles
long and a mile and a half wide; the shores
on either side are dotted with the country
houses of New Workers, with here and
there a big boarding house whose occupants
keep the bay alive with their catboatS dur
ing the summer season.
The place itself is quite a small hamlet.
The entrance to the creek is a narrow place
In which boats drawing more than eighteen
1 W6iIe there her a Is no 20 Current ggI In'I to ot speak + tS b
mud is OF extraordinary depth; judging
by my own misfortunes in failing to reach
the shore, l imagined that IL must have
been at least five feet deep: one of the men
belonging in the neighborhood, who came
to nv help in a. skiff. when / found my
self on a mud bank where, owing 10 the
depth Of the mud. 1 could neither pole nor
use my anchor, assured me that it was at
creek is about a mile long and perhaps
an eighth OF a mile wide. ON either side
1t is bordered with duck farms. OF late
years several erman nave entered the
business and have done exceedingly we'll.
But the pioneer in the business and the
man who still raises more ducks than any
Il one in the country is Mr. William II. PVa.
who began raising ducks here about ten
years ago, and has gradually increased
his plant. Whether a man raises 100 ducks
a year or 10000. the plant appears TO be
very much the same, namely, a yard or
run fenced off with wire netting, one part
OF the run being down in The water and the
other up on land, so thai the ducks can
have a swim and all the exercise they need
and yet not be able to get beyond reach Of
the owner.
A PICTUREsoE SCENE.
The chief objection to large duck farms
Is that the ducks must be fed, whereas, in
the case of the woman Of whom I have just
spoken, the ducks really run wild and get
most of their own food, or all of it, from
the bottom Of the bay. This answers fair
ly we'll for a few ducks-say any number
less than five hundred. When the number
exceeds that. 1t is necessary to keep them
in pens or runs of the sort 1 speak OF. By
the time that we got within a mile of East
port we not only heard the ducks, but we
saw the flutter of their wings in the dis
lance. There seemed to be millions of them.
AS q matter of fact l do not suppose that
there are more than twenty thousand
ducks in the Eastport creek, but the noise
they make, the futter of their wings, their
interminable quack, quack, and their In
cessant movement gives TO the scene a
picturesque life not soon to be forgotten.
All the ducks are white with yellow legs;
mon to the neighborhood. and the one
which has proved most profitable to raise.
The plant OF a duck farm is simple. Imag-
inc a long, low building one story high,
about fifty feet from the water, and run
ming parallel with the shore; from this
building extend the runs or pens, each nj,
hundred feet long, the lower twenty-five or
thirty feet being in the water. At night
the ducks go in1o me r MOUSE PYes at ee ~ asu
there are thirty such runs; when the yards
are full of ducks, there are from eight
thousand to ten thousand in al, not count
ing the very young ones still kept in the
steam-heated house, where they remain un-
til old enough to go out and hight Tor them
selves.
ers have established smaller yards or farms,
while across the river from him three Ger
man duck raisers have made the shore their
own. Thus the Passport creek is really
bordered on both sides by these runs full OF
The system of dividing up the ducks into
go many runs has many advantages, CHIEF
among which is the possibility OF keeping
4 DUCKS OIL the SAME SIN dAAd = W NACAA
selves. and thus not having TO search among
the whole number for those ready for mar
ket when killing day comes, which in this
establishment is twicei a week. Twice a
week a whole run full of ducks are brought
to the butcher, a young and expert operator
armed with a long sharp knife. The ducks
are nuns up by the legs a dozen at q time
over q long trough, and in less time than IL
takes to tell it the knife is up their threats
and they are left to bleed to death. l do
not know whether this system OF killing
would be approved by the late Mr.. Bergh,
hut IL seems to be the common way al
over this part of the country, and is said to
contributes much to the excellence and pleas
ing appearance Of the duck after death-the
flesh is more firm and the color better than
when their neckS are wrung IN the Old
fashioned manner. Let US nope tnat the
ducks find some consolation in this.
DETAILS OF THE BUSINESS.
During the season.. which lasts from six
TO eight months, about 500 ducks a week
are sent from Mr.. Pye's place to New
York. packed in barrels. They weigh form
four to six pounds apiece. and the retail
price varies from Is to 20 cents a pound,
and sometimes is much higher. Strange to
say, very fewsof the ducks are kept here
for the sake OF the eggs they lay. AIR.
Pye buys his eggs from the n~eighboring
farmers, finding that 1t does not pay &c
keep breeders for this purpose. Til eggs
are brought here in quantities and put
into incubatorS for the first part of the
time required to hatch them out. a pc
c~uliarity Of this part OF the business is that
when the egg reaches a point within a
week of maturity 1T IS put under a hen;