. Ducks and geese; a valuable collection of articles on breeding, rearing, feeding, housing and marketing these profitable fowls . HAT egg production is the most profitable and less laborious branch of the poultry industry- is, I believe, generally conceded. Then, if eggs are the chief object, it seems to me that ducks could in many instances be made more profit- able than chickens. The best strains of Pekin ducks will lay nearly if not quite as many eggs as the best strains of fowls — some averaging from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five eggs in a year—and the price of duc
. Ducks and geese; a valuable collection of articles on breeding, rearing, feeding, housing and marketing these profitable fowls . HAT egg production is the most profitable and less laborious branch of the poultry industry- is, I believe, generally conceded. Then, if eggs are the chief object, it seems to me that ducks could in many instances be made more profit- able than chickens. The best strains of Pekin ducks will lay nearly if not quite as many eggs as the best strains of fowls — some averaging from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five eggs in a year—and the price of duck eggs is nearly always twice that of hen eggs. It is true that ducks will consume nearly twice as much food as hens, yet they can be kept very cheaply if their runs are sufficiently large. A duck requires a large amount of coarse food, principally grass, and from fifty to one hundred ducks can be kept upon an acre of land the greater portion of the year, if it be in good grass, with only a small grain and meat ration. The houses for ducks may be less expensive than hen houses, the only requisite being that they be warm and dry. For twenty-five ducks a house sixteen to twenty feet long and eight feet wide is sufficiently large, and it can be built low and banked with straw and earth for protection during the winter. I find that four feet high by two and one-half feet at the eaves, with a shed roof, makes a convenient height. By having the house narrow it is easily cleaned, as those parts not accessible can be reached with a hoe or scraper. The house should be well lighted and made as warm as possible. A very convenient house of the dimensions given can be built of tongued and grooved hemlock lumber planed on one side and lined with building paper, the frame being made of two by four set sidewise so as to form a two-inch dead air space between the paper and the outer wall. In the front is a three-foot door and two windows two feet six inches by four feet, double glazed, one
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Keywords: ., bookauthorreliablepoultryjourna, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900
