The Central Nevadan. [volume] (Battle Mountain, Nev.) 1885-1907, 1901-03-21
Experience with Ducks.

R1 tO8G0 ~
l. X. Felch. writes In Farm-Poultry
as follows:
My duck experience may please
some young reader In these enlight-
ened days. had a cousin who with
me purchased a sitting of eggs. We
set the Eggs in our respective hay
lofts, on the same day. We had be-
come exercised in our minds as to
how these ducks with round bills
were 10 liberate themselves on the
twenty-eighth day, and we concluded
that they must have help. So early on
the twenty-eighth day we proceeded
to help by breaking an egg. AS the
yolk was found not fully absorbed we
concluded that the duckling was de-
formed, and to put 1t out of It's mis-
cry we pulled its head off. Thus we
dissected the whole nestful, and ad-
journed to my hen. On finding the
hrst two in the same fix | vetoed any
further help. saying that they might
as well die in the shell as be killed
out of 1t. Having secured our expert
ence at Charley's expense, l conclud-
ed to let the hen axe the RESPONSE
bility OF releasing her young. The re-
suit was six ducklings. To make them
a swimming pond (for in those days
1T was thought that ducks must have
water to do well), | sawed a barrel at
b second hoop, and sunk it into the
ground. For a few days it was kept
even full of water, then boy fashion. l
neglected it. and on missing my ducks
n day l repaired to my artificial
pond to find them all in it, all but
one exhausted, literally drowned. The
one l revived by placing it in the oven
of the kitchen stove.
For night quarters for another sub
seQuent brood | turned a barrel on its
the other. A storm came up in the
night and beat in, and the bilge being
water tight. all were drowned. This
was dearly bought experience-this
learning that ducks could drown.
Poor consolation l got. for mother
killing Charley's ducks in the nest, as
described. But l was getting expert
ence. and after that l would bore a
hole in the bilge of a barrel, and fill
in with earth to the Level Of the
ground outside. Barrels, with stakes
driven into the ground to confine the
hens. while giving the chicks liberty.
were universally used then for chick
en- coops. | never saw anything else
used for the old hen and chickens up
to that time. Then on seeing in the
Plowman a cut of a te~nt-shaped coop,
l at once went to work to make them
of that shape, and never used a barrel
again after that summers experience.
But l am running away from my
ducks. My lone specimen proved to
be a drake. In the spring | procured
O mate for him at a cost OF one dollar
and fifty cents. They were both
ly white. The duck persisted In lay
ing her eggs In the brook. Morning
after morning l would hunt the water
until l found the egg. Soon my duck
was missing, stolen as l supposed by
a fox. But to my surprise and gratif-
cation In a month she came waddlins
home from the swamp with nine
young ducks.
But trouble was brewing for me.
A vicious cannibal Of q drake will
discount a hawk in his ravages among
young chicks. I was losing my very
young chickens In q most unaccount-
able way. l thought 1t the work Of
rats. but one day l saw the drake, the
apple of my eye. grab = chick. He
Drained 1t in an instant. AID shook
It fat, and gobbled 1t as he would a
frog. Nothing will cure a drake
which once contracts this habit-so l
killed him. To pick him and then to
pick the down was a half a days
work. l graduated then and there as
a picker of ducks. l sold che flock,
and not even the gilded descriptions
of duck culture in the present day
have enticsd me to again follow the
breeding of them.