El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-07-22
Indian Runner Ducks
tBy Prof. Elmer stearns.9

Questions of shade and incubation
seem to be of more than ordinary i'm
portance. considering the number of in
quiries that have been made by Her
aid readers since reading my article on
Indian Runner ducks, previously
printed
1t is quite natural that the first
questions come from those who have
experienced difficulties, and where
their difficulties are well known il
gives one much better opportunity to
be of benefit to them
First I will give my experience as
to shade with little ducks
This is absolutely necessary for
them, and if one is not properly pro-
vided with shade trees. such as fruit
orchards. cottonwoods, Or other trees,
shade must be provided.
As I was not fortunate enough to
have trees for all my yards, 7 thought
of many ways. For the publication of
my yards 1 thought of sowing wheat
or oats to sort of disinfect the soil, as
the growing grain would take up a
great deal of the manure, ETC., but how
to get shade at same time, stuck me
for while, until the idea struck me
that as one of our most common weeds
here Is a member of the sun flower
family, in fact we have two very COM
mon plants of this family which are
large growing weeds, so 1 felt sure
that sowing with the wheat or oats.
sun flower, I might solve the question.
So yard was dug up and the sun
flower and wheat sown When the
wheat was about 10 inches high the
sun flowers were two feet high. then
/ turned in my flock of 81 little ducks.
then about four weeks old, and 1 never
saw such a happy lot of birds. They
would eat their fill, then sit down on
soft bunch and sleep, and you could
actually see them grow. The sun flow
ers kept just out of their reach, they
ate Of the lower leaves. now the sun
flowers are, some of them, eight feet
tall. and have heads 10 inches in d.
emeter, and from a patch about 20
feet square will get nearly a bushel
of seed Each day as 1 feed the ducks
break down the smaller plants that
are not forming heads, and they reach
up and eat off all the leaves
So large and thick are the leaves
that there are no rays of the sun that
reach the ground. and the ducks even
on the hottest days lie comfortably on
the ground in this dense shade, and
grow.
the wheat the same. and I have a
shade that beats a SIS house and will
furnish me good many nice feeds of
seed.
I have never seen anything equal to
the GOODNESS of this shade, for my
yards are in a patio" Mexican yard,
and are surrounded by mud walls
eight feet high and the sun beats down
directly in these yards, and also these
walls get the sun all day and are hot
until late in the night.
Incubation
The disastrous experiences of differ
ent persons with incubating duck eggs
would read worse than a Dooley article.
One party got hatch of two ducks In
200 eggs, the eggs being shipped and
then put in the incubator. 1t is pretty
well established that the average per-
son gets better results Matching chick,
ems than ducks, this is due no doubt
to the greater number of chicken,
Matched, and thus the much greater
experience in the managing of the in
cubator, and again not all the incu-
bator manufacturers have given the at
tention to adjusting their incubators to
ducks eggs, and again many do not
give the explicit instructions that they
do with chickens. especially where
their machines need different adjust
ment.
The main thing is that you can as
near as possible control the. tempera-