Our Domestic Birds Part 10

The eggs are usually laid very early in the morning. Ducks often lay before daylight and almost always lay before eight o'clock. When a duck lays in a nest, she is very likely to cover the egg with the nest material when she leaves it. A duck will often make a nest and remain on it an hour or more and then go and drop her egg somewhere else and pay no further attention to it.

=Growing ducklings.= For a poultry keeper who has only a little room it is much easier to grow a few ducks than to grow an equal number of chickens. There are two reasons for this: One is that the ducklings stand close confinement better and are not so sensitive to unsanitary conditions; the other is that ducks of the improved breeds grow much more quickly than chickens and are grown up before the novelty of caring for them wears off and the keeper tires of giving the close attention that young poultry need when grown under such conditions.

The ducks of the improved breeds are mostly non-sitters. Unless one has common ducks, Muscovy Ducks, Rouen Ducks with some wild Mallard blood, or Mallards not long domesticated, he is not likely to have a duck "go broody," and so small lots of duck eggs are usually hatched under hens.

As duck eggs are larger than hen eggs, a smaller number is given to the hen. Eleven medium-sized duck eggs are given to a hen that would cover thirteen hen eggs. If the eggs are large, it is better to give such a hen only nine.

The development of a fertile duck egg that has a white or slightly tinted sh.e.l.l can be seen very plainly when the egg is held before a light, much earlier than the development of a hen egg. If the sh.e.l.l is green and quite dark in color, the development of the germ may not show any better than in a brown-sh.e.l.led hen egg. The period of incubation is about four weeks. Eggs are sometimes picked as early as the twenty-fifth day, but usually on the twenty-sixth day. As stated in Chapter II, the duckling usually waits quite a long time after chipping the sh.e.l.l before it completes the process and emerges.

In a little duckling we find the most striking resemblance to a reptile that is to be seen among domestic birds. It has a long, soft body, a long neck, short legs, and a wriggling movement, and sometimes, when it is wriggling through a small hole, it looks very snakelike. While they are very small, ducklings are the most interesting of young birds. They will go to the water as soon as they leave the nest. Dabbling in it will not hurt them in the least if the weather is pleasant, if the water is not cold, and if they can leave it when they are tired and go to their mother and get dry and warm. Much of the pleasure of growing young ducks is in watching their behavior in the water. For this purpose a large pan or a small, shallow tub may be placed in their coop. It should either be sunk in the ground, so that they can get in and out easily, or two short pieces of board should be nailed together at such an angle that they will form a little walk from the ground outside, over the edge of the vessel, and to the bottom inside. This walk enables the ducklings to get out if the water gets so low that they cannot scramble from its surface over the sides of the pan or tub. The best way to teach the little ducks to use the walk is to put a little pile of sods or earth beside the vessel containing the water. The ducks will learn very quickly to go into the water in this way, and will soon find their way out by the board walk. After they have come out by the walk a few times, they will begin to go in by it. It is very important to make sure that if young ducks are given water to play in, they can get out of it easily. Many who have not had experience in handling them neglect this and feel very bad when some of their ducklings are drowned.

If proper provision is made for the safety of the ducklings, they afford a great deal of entertainment. One of the first things a little duck does when it gets into the water is to go through the peculiar ducking performance that gives the name to its species. The little fellows duck their heads to the bottom, and their tails and feet go up into the air while they mechanically feel with their bills for the food which instinct seems to suggest should be there. They play in the water, going through all the motions of feeding in it. If the sun is warm, they are as likely to lie down together in the sun when they leave the water as they are to go to the hen to be brooded. As they lie on the ground they often turn one eye toward the sky and look steadily upward, as if they knew intuitively that one of their most dangerous natural enemies might appear from that quarter. In every way they comport themselves just as old ducks do and not at all in the ways of their hen mother.

The young ducks may be fed, as the old ones are, on mash, but should be fed oftener, unless their coops are where they can eat all the gra.s.s they want and can get a great many flies, worms, and insects. They are expert flycatchers, and if there is anything in their coop to attract flies, they will get a great many of them. Under such conditions three feeds a day will be sufficient. If they have no gra.s.s they should be fed five times daily and should be supplied with tender green food of some kind. For the first few days the mash given them should have a little very fine gravel or coa.r.s.e sand mixed with it--about a heaping tablespoonful to a quart of mash. At any time after that when the ducks seem dull and weak, a little fine gravel in the mash will usually tone them up.

Little ducks grow very fast and in a few weeks are entirely independent of the hen. At ten or twelve weeks they are fully feathered and almost full-grown, and are ready to be killed and eaten as "green ducks."

SMALL FLOCKS ON FARMS

=General conditions.= The small flock of ducks on the farm is usually most profitable if it can be given the run of a small pasture or orchard where the birds have good foraging and have access to a pond or stream but cannot wander away. Ducks on the farm are often allowed to run with other poultry. This may do very well if the flocks of all kinds are small and can separate when foraging, but as a rule it is better to put the ducks where they will be away from other poultry. A small flock of ducks properly placed on a farm should require very little food and very little attention. If possible the birds should be free at night, because the worms and grubs come to the surface in greatest abundance then, and they can get as much in an hour early in the morning as they can in several hours after the sun is high. The princ.i.p.al objections to leaving them out at night are that they may be attacked by animals that prey upon them, and that the ducks may lay their eggs where they are not easily found. The person in charge of the ducks has to use his judgment as to whether the risks in his case are so great that the ducks should be confined at night.

When a flock of ducks on a farm has liberty to wander at will, it often makes a great deal of trouble, because ducks are p.r.o.ne to stop for the night wherever they happen to be when they have eaten their fill late in the day.

=Feeding.= If the ducks are kept in until they have laid, they should have a little food when they are let out. It does not make much difference what this is. If a mash is made for other poultry, some of it may be given to them. Otherwise, a little whole grain will make them comfortable until they can pick up a more varied breakfast. The best method of feeding the young ducks will depend upon the conditions. As a rule it is better to keep them quite close for the first two or three weeks and feed them well. The ideal way is to coop them on gra.s.s, or in a garden where they can get a great deal of green food and worms.

Treated in this way they will get a better start and will grow much faster and larger than if they are allowed to wear themselves out by running about while small. On a farm where there is no water near the house, but where there is a stream at a little distance, the young ducks should be so placed that they cannot make their way to this stream. Very small ducks at liberty will often find their way alone to water so far from their home that it was not supposed that they could locate it. If they have an opportunity to do so, small ducks are much more likely than older ones to wander off in search of water, and instinct seems to direct them toward it.

After the ducklings are three or four weeks old, they may be given as much freedom as old ducks. Unless natural food is very abundant, they should be fed some grain for a while. Ducks grown in this way cannot be sold to advantage as green ducks. At this stage of growth they cannot be collected from small flocks and marketed in condition to bring the prices paid for those from the special duck farms, and as it costs the farmer little or nothing to keep his ducks until mature, it is usually more profitable for him to do so than to sell them earlier.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 132. Duck farms at Speonk, Long Island]

On a farm near a market where there is a good demand for green ducks it might pay very well to grow several hundred a year. On this scale the methods should be similar to those used on the special duck farms, except that the hatching might be done with hens. It would not do to let the ducks run about as recommended for stock which is to be kept until mature, because then they would not be fat at the age for killing them.

MARKET DUCK FARMS

=History.= The growing of ducks for the New York City market began on Long Island at a very early stage of specialization in poultry culture.

Many farmers there produced a few hundred ducks for this market each year, and found it very profitable. As the demand increased they tried to increase production to meet it, but were unable to do this, because there was then in this country no duck adapted to their needs. The Aylesbury Duck, the favorite table duck in England, was too delicate.

The only hardy white duck that they had was the White Muscovy. This breed was not very satisfactory, because the females are much smaller than the males, but they had to use white ducks, for the colored ducks will not pick clean at the age at which ducks can be marketed most profitably; so they did the best they could with the White Muscovy Duck, under the restrictions placed upon their operations by the difficulty of getting broody hens. While the industry was mostly on Long Island, there were duck growers here and there on the mainland in the vicinity of New York and also near Boston, but there were no duck farms of any importance in other parts of the country.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 133. View from the windmill tower in Fig. 132]

When the White Pekin Ducks were brought from China, and reports of their hardiness, prolificacy, and rapid growth were circulated, the duck growers were at first very skeptical, but they soon learned that the reports which they had supposed were greatly exaggerated were literally true. Then every duck grower had to have Pekin Ducks. The production increased very much after the introduction of the Pekin Duck, but the growth of the industry was still r.e.t.a.r.ded by the impossibility of getting all the hens that were needed to hatch the eggs. Several incubators had been invented, which hatched very well for those who had the skill to operate them, but which, in the hands of unskilled operators, spoiled most of the eggs placed in them. About 1890 appeared the first incubators with automatic regulators that really worked so that the ordinary person could manage the machines successfully. One of the New England duck growers who had invented the best of the machines used before this time was already growing ducklings on quite a large scale. On Long Island, where most of the duck farms were located, the farmers were hard to convince of the superiority of incubators for their work. Indeed, the only way that they could be convinced was by practical demonstrations right on their own farms. The first incubators used there were machines set up on trial by a manufacturer who had invented an incubator which was very easy to operate. This man went to the duck growing district, placed machines on various farms, and went from farm to farm daily to attend to them, until the farmers were fully convinced that the machines would do what was claimed for them. In a very short time the artificial method had displaced hatching with hens on the commercial duck farms, and the business was growing amazingly. Within ten years there were many farms producing from 15,000 to 20,000 ducks a year, and a few producing from 40,000 to 50,000. One man on Long Island, who operated two farms a few miles apart, sometimes grew 80,000 ducks in a season. Those who were successful on a large scale became moderately rich. Without exception the successful duck farms have been built up from small beginnings by men who had very little capital to start with.

Some of these farms have been operated on a large scale for twenty years.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 134. House and yards for breeding stock]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 135. Brooder house for young ducklings]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 136. Fattening sheds and yards]

VIEWS OF WEBER BROTHERS' DUCK FARM, WRENTHAM, Ma.s.sACHUSETTS

As would be expected, the success of the big duck farms has led many people with large capital to undertake to establish duck farms on a still larger scale. But these undertakings do not last long, because it is practically impossible to secure for such a plant an organization as efficient as one developed by the owner of a plant which has grown from small beginnings under his own management.

=Description.= A large duck farm is a very interesting place at any time, but is most interesting at the height of the growing season, when all the operations in the business are going on at the same time. The total number of birds on a farm at any time is very much less than the product for the season, because the first ducks hatched will have gone to market before the eggs which produce the last are laid, but in flocks of more than 10,000 the impression on the visitor is much the same, no matter what the numbers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 137. Duck house and yards on seash.o.r.e, Fishers Island, New York]

Duck farms are of two types: those located on streams or inlets have the yards for all but the smallest ducks partly in the water; the inland duck farms, on which the young ducks grown for market are given no water except for drinking. Some of the inland farms give the breeding stock access to streams and ponds only during the molting season, when they can be allowed to run in large flocks and a small area of water will serve for all. For a time after the large inland duck farms were first established it was claimed by many that ducks grew faster when not allowed to swim than they did when allowed to follow their natural inclination to play in the water. No doubt some ducks which were in dry yards grew better than some having access to large bodies of water, and on the whole as good ducks were grown on the inland farms as on those near the water, but it has long been known that it is much easier to manage the ducks when they have water in their yards. There are two reasons for this: in the first place, they are much more contented in the water; in the second place, they feel very much safer on the water when anything alarms them, and will keep quiet on it when, if they could not retreat to the water, they would rush about in a panic and many would be injured.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 138. Quarters for breeding stock on an inland duck farm. Swimming tanks in the yards]

Ducks are very timid and easily panic-stricken. The duck grower has to take every possible precaution to guard against disturbances of this kind, because ducks are so easily injured, and even if they are not hurt, a sudden fright will make them shrink a great deal in weight.

Visitors who come merely out of curiosity are not desired on duck farms at any time, and none but those familiar with the handling of ducks are ever allowed to go about the farm without a guide who will see that the ducks are not disturbed. Many visitors think that this is unreasonable, but the duck grower knows that the mere presence of a stranger excites the ducks, and that a person walking about might put a flock in a panic which would at once extend to other flocks, simply because he was not familiar enough with the ways of ducks to detect the signs of panic in a flock which he was approaching, and to stand still until they were quiet, or move very slowly until he had pa.s.sed them. If a stranger, walking between yards where there were five thousand ducks fattening, made an unconscious movement that set the ducks in motion, the loss to the grower could hardly be less than from five to ten dollars, and might be very much more. Where such little things can cause so much trouble and loss, the difference between success and failure may lie in preventing them.

On a duck plant with a capacity of 50,000 ducks everything is on a big scale. Although ducks will stand more crowding than other kinds of poultry, it takes a large farm for so many. The buildings will cover many thousands of square feet of land and, though of the cheapest substantial structure, will represent an investment of fifteen or twenty thousand dollars. Incubators, appliances, breeding stock, and supplies on hand will amount to about as much. The incubator cellar will be several times as large as the cellar under the ordinary dwelling house.

Before the so-called mammoth incubators were made, the largest-sized machines heated with lamps were used on all duck farms, and an incubator cellar would sometimes contain as many as seventy incubators having a capacity of from 200 to 300 eggs each. Now many of the large farms use the mammoth incubators, with a capacity of from 6000 to 18,000 eggs each. These mammoth incubators are really series of small egg chambers so arranged that the entire series is heated by pipes coming from a hot-water heater, instead of each chamber having an independent lamp heater as in the small, or individual, machines.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 139. Feeding young ducks on farm of W. R. Curtiss & Co., Ransomville, New York]

As nearly all kinds of supplies are bought by the carload, and as stocks must be kept up so that there will be no possibility of running short of foodstuffs, a great deal of s.p.a.ce is required for storage. Large quant.i.ties of ice are needed to cool the dressed ducks before s.h.i.+pping them to market, so the farm must have its own ice houses and store its own supply of ice in the winter. For some years after duck farms grew to such large proportions, the mixing of mash was all done by hand, with shovels. Often one man was kept busy all day long mixing mash, and very hard work it was. Now the men on the large farms mix the food in big dough mixers, such as are used by bakers, and work that would take a man an hour is done in a few minutes.

In some sections the killing and dressing of the ducks is done by men with whom duck picking is a trade at which they work during its season.

In others the killing is done by men, but the pickers are women living in the vicinity of the farm, who can be secured for this work whenever they are needed. A farm that markets 50,000 ducks in a season will keep a large force of pickers busy the greater part of the time for many months. Quite a large building is required to provide room for the pickers to work in, for tanks for cooling 500 or more ducks at once, for s.p.a.ce for the men who pack them, and for lofts for drying the feathers before they are sold. This drying process must be used whether the birds are dry-picked or are scalded before the feathers are removed. Water on feathers dries quickly, but the oil in the quills dries very slowly. The feathers from one duck are worth only a few cents, and where small numbers are grown the feathers are hardly worth the trouble of saving and curing. On a large plant the total product of feathers for a season amounts to several thousand dollars, and it pays to provide facilities for taking proper care of them.

After the crop of ducks on an inland farm is marketed, the fences must be removed and the land plowed and sowed with winter rye. This crop is used extensively for this purpose, because it is a gross feeder and takes the impurities from the soil very fast, and also furnishes a good supply of green food for the stock ducks during the winter and for the first young ducks put on the land in the spring. Where the farms are large enough, all ducks may be kept off a part of the land each year and crops grown on it. The farms located at the waterside do not have to look to the purification of the land so carefully, because the rains wash a great deal of the droppings away. Some of these farms get large quant.i.ties of river gra.s.s from the streams and cut it up to mix with the food for the ducks.

DUCK FANCIERS' METHODS

There are two general cla.s.ses of duck fanciers: those who breed one or more of the useful varieties for fine form and feather points, and those who breed the ornamental varieties. Breeders of the latter cla.s.s usually keep other kinds of ornamental poultry also.

The methods of the fanciers of useful kinds of ducks compare with those of the practical growers who handle small numbers as do those of the fowl fancier with the methods of the poultry keeper who keeps a few fowls for his own use. In a general way they are the same, yet wherever it is necessary they are modified to secure the best possible development of the type. If a duck fancier has not a natural water supply for his ducks, he either makes a small artificial pond or ditch or gives them water for bathing much oftener than the commercial duck grower thinks is necessary. He also gives both old and young ducks more room, and encourages them to take exercise, because this makes them stronger, more symmetrical, and better able to stand transportation and the handling to which they are subjected when taken to shows. Most duck fanciers are also fanciers of fowls or of some other kind of poultry.

The compet.i.tion in ducks is not nearly so keen as in fowls. Hence they are so much less interesting to a fancier that few are satisfied with the sport that may be obtained from exhibiting ducks only.

When the growing of green ducks for market began to be developed upon a large scale, many of those engaged in this line exhibited stock and sold birds for breeding and eggs for hatching. They soon found that while the Pekin Duck was unrivaled as a market duck, it was not of sufficient interest to fanciers to excite the compet.i.tion that creates high prices for the finest specimens, and that it paid them better to devote themselves exclusively to the production of market ducks. At the present time only a few market duck growers make a business of selling breeding and exhibition stock. Most of them will not take small orders, but will fill large orders when they have a surplus of breeding stock and can get a good price for it. On almost every large commercial duck farm there are hundreds of birds much better than most of the Pekin Ducks seen at poultry shows, and many better than the best exhibited. There is probably no other kind of poultry in which so large a proportion of the finest specimens are found on the plants of those producing for market.

The ornamental varieties of ducks are given much less attention in America than they deserve. Few are seen except in large collections of fancy waterfowl, and sales from these collections are princ.i.p.ally for special displays at shows. On many farms the Mallard, Call, and East Indian Ducks might be established and left to themselves, to increase in a natural way, only enough being sold or killed to keep them from becoming too numerous. If located in a suitable place, such a flock makes a very attractive feature on a farm. The highly ornamental Mandarin and Carolina Ducks, being able to fly quite as well as pigeons, must be kept in covered runs. They will breed and rear their young in a very small s.p.a.ce. A covered run 6 ft. wide, 6 ft. high, and from 20 to 30 ft. long, built in a secluded place and having a small shelter at one end, makes a very satisfactory place for a pair of ducks of any of the small breeds to live and rear their young.

CHAPTER VIII

GEESE

People who are not familiar with animals often get wrong ideas of the characters of certain creatures from the popular metaphorical use of their names. Perhaps those who first applied these metaphors understood them correctly, but after long use by people acquainted with the metaphor but not familiar with the animal to which it relates, a part of the meaning is likely to be lost. This is what has happened to the term "goose" as applied to a person. When one acts stupidly foolish about some little thing he is often called a goose. Most people, a.s.sociating the idea of stupidity with the name of the goose, suppose that geese are very stupid and uninteresting. If you will notice how the term "goose"