Page:Ducks- and how to make them pay (IA cu31924003102971).pdf/33

Rh for them to run up, they should be let out once or twice a day for a little exercise. When the owner wants eggs they should be fed on good nutritious food, when the eggs, as a rule, will begin to grow at once, and the bird's system is in a fit state to lay the eggs when they are ready. But when they are fed so well all along they are too fat for laying, and very often become egg-bound before they have laid ten eggs. When one begins to feed them on nutritious food to produce eggs, it should be given hot and in troughs.

I have had a large number of ducks sent to me for post-mortem examination just as they have commenced laying, and they have been lined with fat, so much so that the egg passage was blocked up. When the egg is passing down the oviduct something must give way. It is a very wrong thing to allow ducks to be hurried, especially when they first commence laying, as they are very full of eggs, and the thin skin which covers the eggs in the ovary is apt to break. If that does not give way, very often the egg gets broken by the sudden jerk while it is passing down the oviduct. A laying duck ought not to have to get up a high step or a bank. When they come out of the duck pond they should always have a ladder, or a plank, or something that they can walk up out of the water, without exerting themselves. Ducks have the power of holding their eggs, perhaps more so than any other variety of the feathered tribes. They have been known to lay three perfectly-shelled eggs in twenty-four hours. This is when they have been put out of their proper places when laying. Should such a bird be