Page:Ducks- and how to make them pay (IA cu31924003102971).pdf/45



Setting—Care of eggs during incubation—Duck eggs and incubators—The nest: formation and material—Egg testing to ensure fertile eggs being sat upon.—Ducks as vermin destroyers.

ITTING and hatching is a very anxious time with most duck breeders, especially with the novice who has had little to do with it. Many of them, perhaps, have not hatched out any before. With those who partly get their living by rearing young ducklings it is also a most anxious time. With them setting is seed time. Does not the same thing apply to almost everything? The gardener and the farmer, when they sow their seed, live in hopes that it will come up well, and then, when it is sprouting and looking healthy, the anxiety is not all over; the seed has to grow. Still, it is a great deal when the seed is up and the plant is beginning to shoot. That is a step in the right direction. Unless we sow we cannot reap. So it is with the ducklings. If we do not set and hatch we cannot rear, and unless we rear we have no fat ducklings to eat; therefore sitting and hatching is one of the most important parts of the whole branch of the business. It is important that