Page:Ducks- and how to make them pay (IA cu31924003102971).pdf/60

46 winter and cool in the summer. It prevents the hot rays of the sun from penetrating, and the sharp frosts in the winter from reaching the insides of the sheds. One duck house I measured at a village close to Aylesbury was 12 feet square, and it had 250 young ducklings in it, ranging from two days to four weeks old, and every one of them perfectly healthy, but I ought to mention they were divided into four separate lots by thin boards for partitions. Those who have not seen them would scarcely credit that young ducklings could thrive and grow where they were kept so very close together, having no hens running with them. They are kept clean, being bedded down with fresh wheat or barley straw every morning. They are let out of these places, where they are so very thick together, to feed and water in what the people call an outer yard, so that they have more space while they are feeding and drinking. After they are five weeks old the Aylesbury people very seldom feed them more than twice a day; some breeders feed them three times. They usually have as much as they can eat at a time, but nothing is left to stand by them, neither is the water allowed to remain near them, as they consider too much water very injurious to the growth of the ducklings. The Aylesbury people have always been brought up to this kind of management from children, as have also their fathers, their grandfathers, and their great-grandfathers before them. They feed the ducklings in long troughs generally. They also use a quantity of greaves, or granulated meat, in their food. Those breeders who rear a number of young ducklings have a copper boiling with