Natural and Artificial Duck Culture

Part 1

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NATURAL

AND

ARTIFICIAL

DUCK CULTURE

JAMES RANKIN

Price 50 Cents.

FIFTH EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED

SOUTH EASTON, MASS. 1906

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1906, by JAMES RANKIN, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

DESIGNED AND COMPILED BY H. A. SUMMERS BOSTON, MASS.

INTRODUCTION.

Our original motive in publishing this little book, was one of self-defense, to relieve ourselves, in a measure, of a correspondence which was becoming much too large for the time at our disposal. After reading from fifty to one hundred letters per day, from people, asking all manner of questions concerning the hatching, growing and marketing of ducks, in detail, there were not hours enough in the twenty-four to answer them. This book was published to send out with our machines to meet these queries and give our patrons our method of growing, supposing it would cover all the points in duck-culture, but it does not as yet answer the ends. The questions still come in far beyond our ability to answer, and as our fourth edition is about exhausted, we now publish a fifth, revised, enlarged and illustrated; also adding a Question Bureau, which will answer many of the questions which have reached us during the past few years concerning the growing, as well as the diseases to which the Pekin duck is subject. Though we have been in this business for nearly forty years, and have been eminently successful, we do not claim to know all about it; but by persistent effort, careful selection and breeding, have succeeded in developing a mammoth strain of Pekin ducks, which, for symmetry, precocity and fecundity (experts who have visited our place from all parts of the country tell us), stand unrivalled on this continent.

Many of our customers write us that their birds average from 150 to 165 eggs per season. We would say that there is no domestic bird under so perfect control, so free from diseases of all kinds, or from insect parasites as the Pekin duck. From the time the little bird is hatched until it is full grown and ready to reproduce its own species, it is under the perfect control of the intelligent operator, who can produce feathers, flesh or bone at will, and even mature the bird and compel it to lay at four-and-a-half months old. There is no bird in existence that will respond to kind treatment, generous care and feed as the Pekin duck. On the other hand, there is no bird more susceptible to improper feed or neglect, and a sad mortality is sure to follow among the little ones, where proper food and system are wanting. It may surprise some one to know that the predisposition to disease may exist in the egg from which the little bird is hatched, or even in the condition of the parent bird which produces the egg. Strong physique in animal life, as in man, are like exotics, requiring the most assiduous care and cultivation, and are the most difficult to transmit.

Defects, like weeds, seem indigenous to the soil and will reproduce with unerring regularity, and will often crop out in all directions, generations after you think you have wiped it all out. So it is one thing to produce an egg from good, strong, vigorous stock during the winter in inclement weather, when all nature is against you, and so poorly fertilized that if it hatches at all, will hatch a chick so enfeebled in construction that no amount of petting or coaxing can induce it to live, but quite another to produce an egg so highly vitalized, that it will be sure to hatch a healthy young bird, bound to live under all circumstances. But this is not all the danger. The operator, though he may have good eggs, may be neglectful or ignorant, and the health of the young birds seriously injured during the hours of incubation; or he may have a defective machine which under no condition can turn out healthy birds. With healthy, vigorous parent stock, judicious care and food, there is no reason why good hatches of strong, healthy young birds may not be obtained, and the same matured with very little loss.

Natural and Artificial Duck Culture.

It is only within a few years that the public at large have become awake to the importance of the poultry interests in the country. Formerly it was supposed to be of insignificant proportions compared to the beef and pork product. But recent statistics show that the poultry interests in magnitude not only exceed either of the above, but are vastly on the increase year by year. Yet, strange to say, the supply, enormous as it is, does not keep pace with the demand. As a natural consequence, we are obliged to import millions of dozens of eggs from Europe, and carloads of poultry of all descriptions from Canada. (December 21, 1888, a train of twenty refrigerator cars loaded with dressed poultry, aggregating 200 tons, arrived in Boston from Canada,--$50,000 worth of dressed poultry at one shipment.) Still the demand goes on. Our large cities, which form the principal market for poultry and eggs, are growing larger every year. The rich men who inhabit them are growing richer and more numerous, and are always ready to pay the poulterer a good round price for a first-class article. Good poultry has not only become an every day necessity to the well-to-do classes, but is a common article of diet at least six months of the year on the workingman's table. It is everywhere recognized by physicians as the best and most palatable, as well as the most wholesome and nutritious, of all our flesh diets.

Duck Culture an Important Industry.

Duck culture now assumes a most important part in the poultry business, and yet, until within a few years, people did not suppose that ducks were fit to eat. But now the public appetite is fast becoming educated to the fact that a nice, crispy, roasted duckling of ten weeks old is not only a dish fit for an epicure, but is far ahead of either turkey, chicken or goose. As a natural consequence, the demand for good ducks is rapidly increasing. One of the principal poultry dealers in Boston assured me that his sales of ducks had nearly doubled each season for the past five years. Twenty years ago, when growing less than 1500 ducks yearly, I was obliged to visit the city markets personally and tease the dealers to purchase my birds in order to secure anything like satisfactory prices. Now, with a ranch capacity of nearly 20,000 ducks yearly, I cannot fill my orders.

Pond or Lake Not Necessary.

The reason is very plain. Formerly people supposed that ducks could not be successfully grown without access to either pond, stream or coast line. As a natural consequence, a large share of the birds sold in the markets were grown on or near the coasts, fed largely on fish, partially fattened, and were anything but a tempting morsel. For years there have been large establishments on the Long Island shores devoted to duck-culture. Large seines and nets were used regularly to secure the fish on which the young birds were fed and fattened. These birds grew to a large size and attained a fine plumage, but, as might be surmised, their flesh was coarse and fishy. Occasionally a person was found who relished these birds, but the majority of people preferred to eat their fish and flesh separately. Now this is all changed.

Duck-culture of today is quite a different thing from the days of yore. Then, the young birds were confided to the tender mercies of the old hen. Now, the business is all done artificially. The artificially-grown, scrap-fed duckling of the interior is a far different bird from his fishy-fed brother of the coast. He has been educated to a complete indifference to water except to satisfy his thirst. Taught to take on flesh and fat instead of feathers, his body is widened out and rounded off, and, when properly denuded of his feathers, is a thing of beauty.

Ducks In Great Demand for Food.

This sudden popularity of the duck in our markets, the great demand for them on the tables of our epicures, together with the immense profits realized from growing them, has naturally created quite an interest among poultry men; so much so that I am constantly flooded with letters filled with inquiries as to which is the best variety to raise, which are the best layers, if they can be hatched in incubators, what kind of buildings are necessary, the amount of profit realized,--in short, wishing me to give them the whole thing in detail, which, were one willing, it would be completely out of one's power to do. As there seems to be no work published in the country to meet this case and answer these queries, in pure self-defense, and through earnest persuasion of many friends, I shall, to the best of my ability, through this little treatise, endeavor to answer them, together with many other points which will naturally suggest themselves.

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