The Cook County herald., 1903-07-11
DUCK CULTURE.

From Farmers Review: The most
important thing Is to have good
healthy parent stock that is not in
bred. What; we mean by inbred is
using male birds from your own eggs
for breeders several years without
getting new blood from some other
source. Our practice Is to get some
other breeder to exchange eggs with
us from which we hatch and raise our
own brakes for breeding for next
season. In raising stock for breeding
we start from the time the parent
stock is hatched. These are selected
from the April and May matches and
are not forced same as ordinary stock
for market. They do not come to ma
tur1ty In four weeks. AS soon as they
get their feathers Except the wings)
we sort them, picking out all the most
promising ducks for breeders. The
brakes are put back in pens and fat
tened for market. For breeders we
select the medium-size ducks, with
brakes just little under-sized. These
we think are more active and eggs
are more fertile. AS soon as we have
our breeders sorted we turn them out
to pasture in f1ocks, say 200 on about
two acres with plenty of shade and a
creek running through the lot. They
are fed sparingly on light feed COM
posed OF three-quarters bran with the
rest equal parts corn meal, low grade
flour, ground oats, per cent beef
scrap; also one-third of entire mix
ture, cut clover rowen of second crop
clover cut very fine, with all long
stems screened out. or green corn
fodder cut every. day very fine. Feed
all they will eat up clean quickly.
Keep them purposely a little hungry.
They are kept here until Nov. / to
u, according to weather. Then they
are again sorted and put in pens 12x
100 with 10x1o pen inside house, 20
ducks and 5 brakes to a pen. Each
pen has feed trough / foot wide
inches deep, II feet long, with an
other for water 6 feet long outside.
Inside they have a feed trough same
as others with is quart pail for
water not over IA inches high. This
pen is kept bedded with fine planer
shavings preferred. 1t has a box for
oyster shells and gravel size of wheat
or corn. Here the feed is all changed
to equal parts: corn meal, bran, low.
grade flour, ground oats and stale
bread or crackers, it can be had. 10
per cent beef scrap and one-third en-
tire mixture, fine cut clover. Steam
the whole mixed thoroughly with
warm water, not sloppy, but in a con-
d1tion so it crumbles. Feed inside in
stormy weather and outside if the
snow is off the ground. They should
start laying by last of December or
first of January. The eggs are gath
cred first thing in the morning,
when one can see to get them; also
again at and II o'clock. This is
to keep them from getting chilled.
Later when it is warm or 10 O'Clock
will do. AS the pens are kept bedded
the eggs which are laid on the floor
are most all clean. Those that are
soiled are washed lightly. We set, our
eggs twice or three times a week
never using eggs over one week old.
They are run in the incubator four
weeks at 103, being turned on wire
trays half over every twelve hours.
We never open machine from time
they start to hatch until all are out
Machine is provided with nursery
under trays below into which they fall
as fast as hatched and are out of the
way Of others that are coming out.
When they are all dried off we take
bushel basket and line with paper,
then put in soft cloth, first warming
it; into this we place the little
downy fellows, cover them up and
hurry them off to the brooder house.
w. P. Curtiss, Niagara County, New
York.
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