Page:Ducks- and how to make them pay (IA cu31924003102971).pdf/27

Rh from. Some people do breed from them, but when they do the offspring look very unsightly indeed. Occasionally some of them will come with a little bunch of feathers on the top of their heads. If these are bred from again the little top-knots increase in size. I have seen a whole family of Aylesburies with quite a crest of feathers upon their heads. The feathers have been about two inches long, like those on a Houdan hen's head. I do not like to see them, as it looks unnatural in a duck. Of course there are people who fancy such ducks, and it is very easy to make a strain of stock ducks of this kind when a person who has a fancy for them has one or two sports come with feathers upon the head. Those who want to produce eggs in the winter should adhere strictly to the instructions given in the chapter on feeding. Give food as hot as the ducks can eat it, and if it is very cold weather give them a little warm water to drink. This may seem a ridiculous idea to some people, but if they get good laying strains of ducks and treat them in the way I have described in the chapter on feeding, namely, boil the corn and give it to the ducks quite hot, with the water in which it was boiled, and a feed of hot rice, with a little poultry powder occasionally, they will find it will well repay them for their trouble.

Ducks are now being kept merely for eggs and domestic purposes—that is, for one's own consumption—because a duck egg contains so much more nutriment than a hen's egg, and pastry-cooks always say that they go so much further in making pastry that they prefer two ducks' eggs to three hens' eggs. No one need despair in keeping a few