Our Domestic Birds Part 9

=Origin.= Useful domestic ducks are of two species. All the breeds of this cla.s.s, except the Muscovy Duck, are derived from the wild Mallard Duck, specimens of which are still frequently captured and domesticated.

The Mallard takes very readily to domestication. Although in the wild state it is a migratory bird, in domestication it soon becomes too heavy to fly far. After a few generations in domestication it becomes as large as common domestic stock, loses its power of flight, and cannot be distinguished from stock that has been domesticated for centuries.

Mallard Ducks captured in the wild state and kept in captivity have been known to lay from eighty to one hundred eggs in a season, which is as many as the average domestic duck lays.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 122. Domesticated Mallard Ducks, Brook View Farm, Newbury, Ma.s.sachusetts]

When ducks were first domesticated is not known. The figure of a duck was used in the earliest Egyptian hieroglyphics. As the Mallard is widely distributed and so easily tamed, and as domestic ducks of the same type (but apparently not related in domestication) are found in widely separated parts of the earth, it is plain that the distribution of domestic ducks has been less dependent upon the movements of the human race than the distribution of the fowl. Wherever at any time in the history of the world male and female wild Mallards happened to be caught and kept in captivity, a domestic race might be developed. A missionary who went to Africa in 1885 and worked among the Bakubas--a people more than a thousand miles from the west coast of the continent--reported that he found there such little mongrel fowls as are common elsewhere in Africa, and a local race of domestic ducks varied in color as are the common ducks of Europe and America, but as large as the Rouen and Pekin ducks. The Bakubas had had so little intercourse with civilized peoples that it was not at all likely that an improved race of ducks had been introduced from the outside world, and whatever possibility of that might be supposed to exist, the fact that the ducks of this country, like the domestic quadrupeds, were dumb indicates that they are a distinct and very old domestic race.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 123. Colored Muscovy Ducks. (Photograph by E. J.

Hall)]

It is worth noting in this connection that the missionary, Dr. William H. Sheppard, found it the accepted opinion among this savage people that, by a process of natural selection, the character of dumbness had been acquired by the domestic animals, to which it gave a measure of protection from wild enemies in the forest around them. It seems wonderful that the theory of evolution was found out by such people before it was developed by modern scientists.

=The common duck.= Like the ordinary mongrel fowl, the common duck (sometimes called the puddle duck, because, when it cannot find water elsewhere, it appears to be perfectly satisfied with the filthiest puddles) is much the same in all parts of the world and is a very inferior bird in comparison with ducks of the improved races. Common ducks are usually very slow growers and weigh at maturity from three to four pounds each. As a rule they are very indifferent layers, laying only in the spring. They are of various colors.

=Improved races.= Nearly all our improved races of ducks are of foreign origin. At the poultry exhibition at Boston in 1849 the only kinds exhibited were the Aylesbury, the Muscovy, and the ornamental Wood ducks.

The Aylesbury Duck is a large white duck developed as a local variety in the vale of Aylesbury, in England. It has a flesh-colored bill, and legs of a pale orange color. Although the favorite market duck in England, and early known in America, it never became a favorite here.

The Muscovy Duck is, as has been stated, of a different species from our other useful breeds. It is a native of South America and is supposed to have been taken to Europe in the seventeenth century. It was probably brought to North America from Europe less than a hundred years ago. It differs from ducks of Mallard origin in several other particulars besides the naked head with its bright-red, carunculated skin. The male is very much larger than the female. The tail is longer and more depressed. There is an entire absence of red pigment in the plumage. The natural color is black and white, unevenly distributed. This variety is called the Colored Muscovy Duck. Many specimens are nearly black. The White Muscovy Duck is an albino variety. By crossing these two varieties a blue variety is sometimes obtained, but, although Blue Muscovy Ducks have been made at various times, fanciers have never taken enough interest in them to encourage the originators to continue their breeding.

The Rouen Duck takes its name from the town of Rouen, in the north of France, though the type seems to have been common over quite a large area and not peculiar to the vicinity of that town. It is like the Mallard in color, and is just such a duck as by good care and selection for size might be developed at any time from common ducks of that color.

Rouen Ducks are said to have been well known in the south of England early in the nineteenth century. When they were brought to this country is not known. Although for a long time they have been familiar to those who attend poultry shows, and have been widely distributed in small numbers, they have never been extensively bred because the Rouen, having dark plumage, is not desirable for the production of young ducks for market. When mature it dresses clean and the quality of its flesh is unsurpa.s.sed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 124. Rouen Ducks, Brook View Farm, Newbury, Ma.s.sachusetts]

The Cayuga Duck is an improved black duck developed about the middle of the last century in Cayuga County, New York. Some early accounts of its origin stated that it was a domesticated wild black duck, but it is much more reasonable to suppose that it was developed by selection from black and nearly black common ducks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 125. Flock of Pekin Ducks]

The White Pekin Duck is a Chinese breed closely resembling the Aylesbury Duck of England. It has an orange-yellow bill and legs. No large ducks of other colors than white have ever been brought to this country or to Europe from China. As far as is known, the importations from China to England and the United States consisted of only a few birds and were made about 1872-1875. Information about these is not very definite. The most commonly accepted version is that they were brought to England in 1874 and to the United States from England in the following year, but some accounts say that both England and America received them direct in 1873, and one account places the first importation to England in 1872.

The exact truth is not of importance in such a matter, but those who are interested in the remarkable developments in duck culture which followed the arrival of this breed in the Western World naturally wish to know the facts. All accounts agree that there were only a few ducks brought from China. In England the Pekin became quite popular at once. It was hardier and more prolific than the Aylesbury, and was used largely in outcrosses, to give vigor to Aylesbury stock. In America it became immensely popular in a few years. It was found to be remarkably well adapted to intensive methods of poultry keeping, and large duck farms were built up; some of these made very large profits for long periods of years.

The Indian Runner Duck is a small, active duck which originated long ago as the common duck on the meadows of certain marshy districts in the Netherlands. The peasants of these districts compelled their ducks to forage for their food, and so developed ducks with a more upright carriage and stronger legs than the other races. In the Netherlands these ducks are of all colors.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 126. Indian Runner Ducks. (Photograph from owner, Clayton Ballard, White Pine, Tennessee)]

Ducks of this type, in color white with fawn-colored markings, were introduced to poultry fanciers in England in 1893 or 1894 as Indian Runner Ducks. It was said that they had been first brought from India to c.u.mberland fifty or sixty years before, and that ever since that time they had been bred pure by a few breeders and more or less mixed with the common stock of that section by many others. The story of their history in England is much more plausible than that of their origin in India. When the breed was shown on the Continent of Europe it was at once recognized by fanciers there as an improved variety of a common duck.

Compared with other ducks the Indian Runner is a remarkable layer, but it does not, as many admirers of the breed claim, surpa.s.s fowls in egg production, and the market for duck eggs is so limited that it is easily overstocked.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 127. Flock of White Indian Runner Ducks. (Photograph from Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture)]

Blue Swedish Ducks and Buff Orpington Ducks are simply color varieties of an improved type of the common duck. There are several other quite well-marked varieties in Europe that have not been seen in this country.

=Ornamental ducks.= The ornamental ducks of the same species as the common duck, and derived either from common ducks or directly from the Mallard, are the East India Duck, the Black, White, and Gray Call Ducks, and the Crested White Duck. The Call Ducks are so named because their persistent quacking makes them valuable for calling wild ducks within range of the guns of hunters, and they are much used as decoys. They are very small and were produced by dwarfing common ducks. The name "gray,"

to describe the colored variety, is misleading. The color is like that of the Mallard but of a lighter shade. Some Mallards are quite as gray as the average Gray Call Duck. The Black East India Duck is a dwarf black duck differing so little from the Call Ducks as to leave no doubt, in the mind of any one acquainted with the mysteries of making and naming breeds of poultry, that, like the Call Ducks, it is of European origin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 128. Blue Orpington Ducks. (Photograph from owner, Sunswick Farm, Plainfield, New Jersey)]

There are many ornamental ducks of other species, the most interesting of which are the brilliantly colored Wood Duck (sometimes called the Carolina Duck) and the Mandarin Duck, which, besides being gorgeously colored, has a peculiar crest and has some of the feathers on its wings oddly curved and spread, giving it a singular appearance. Specimens of these ducks are almost always to be seen in a collection of fancy waterfowl. The Wood Duck is a native of North America, the Mandarin Duck of Northern China.

=Place of ducks in domestication.= It has been stated that if there were no fowls, the duck would make the best subst.i.tute, but as we have fowls in great variety, and as they suit us better than ducks for nearly every purpose for which either might be used, ducks are not often kept in place of fowls. Small flocks of ducks are kept in addition to a flock of fowls, both on farms and by town poultry keepers, either because the owner likes to have them about or to add to the variety of poultry meat for home consumption. The flocks of ducks so kept are of comparatively little economic importance. The ratio of ducks to fowls is only about one to fifty, and the ratio of values of the products of these two kinds of poultry is probably nearer one to one hundred. But when poultry keeping is made a special business, duck growing gives the surest and the largest profits, because ducks can be grown in large numbers more easily than any other domestic animal. The largest permanently successful poultry farms in the world are the great duck farms of the United States.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 129. Black and White Call Ducks, Brook View Farm, Newbury, Ma.s.sachusetts]

To the fancier, ducks are decidedly less interesting than fowls, not only because, as has already been stated, they present fewer superficial characters upon which he can exercise his art, but because they are, on the whole, less intelligent and less capable of developing confidence in one who handles them. Fowls are much easier to handle in the way the fancier must often handle his birds for thorough examination. As a rule, a fowl quickly learns that it is not going to be hurt, and the more it is handled the tamer it becomes. Young ducks are almost stupidly fearless of the person who feeds them, as long as he goes among them without touching them, but after he catches them they are as stupidly shy. It takes very much more patience to handle ducks as a fancier handles birds than the average human being possesses, and so very few people find them satisfactory for pets after they cease to be a novelty.

Perhaps if the interest in the breeding of ducks for exhibition were greater, stocks of ducks that were free from this timidity could gradually be developed. Individual birds are often found which are not at all shy; and, as a rule, persistent selection for any quality will eventually make it a race characteristic.

CHAPTER VII

MANAGEMENT OF DUCKS

Although ducks delight in the water and, when they have an opportunity to do so, spend a considerable part of the time in it, they are often kept very successfully where they have no water except for drinking.

Some duck breeders, who have kept their ducks for many generations without water in which they could swim, have said that the ducks lost all desire to swim, and that birds of such stock would not go into the water even when they had the opportunity to do so. This statement greatly exaggerates the facts. Any young duck, no matter how the stock from which it came has been kept, will take to the water as soon as it can run about if it is given access to water at that time; but if young ducks are kept away from the water until they are several weeks old, and then given access to water in which they can swim, they are often as much afraid of the water as they would be of any object to which they were not accustomed. If they remain near the water, however, it will not be long before they follow their natural instinct to get into it. Having once entered the water, they are immediately as much at home there as if they had always known the pleasures of life in that element.

As comparatively few people keep ducks, and specialization in duck culture is mostly in the line of producing young ducks for market, on a large scale, there is not as much variety in methods of managing ducks as in methods of managing fowls. If ducks are expected to do the best of which they are capable, they must be given a great deal of attention.

While no bird will endure more neglect without appearing to suffer, there is none that will respond to good care more generously.

SMALL FLOCKS ON TOWN LOTS

=Numbers.= The small flock of ducks on a town lot is usually a _very_ small flock, kept more from curiosity and for a little variety in poultry keeping than with any definite purpose. Most of such little flocks are composed of a drake and from one to five ducks. Where a larger flock is kept for the eggs they produce, the number rarely exceeds fifteen or twenty. Many town people who want to grow only a few ducks each year prefer not to keep any adult stock, but to buy a few eggs for hatching when they want them.

=Houses and yards.= Ducks require about the same amounts of house and yard room per bird as fowls. While they will stand crowding better than any other kind of poultry, they appreciate an abundance of room and good conditions, and are more thrifty when they are not overcrowded. Where they can be allowed to remain outdoors at night, they really need no shelter but a shed large enough to give them shade from the sun on hot days and protection from hard, driving storms. On most town lots, however, it is advisable to have them indoors at night for protection from dogs and thieves. Also, the amount of roughing that they like, while not at all detrimental to them, is not conducive to early laying.

So most duck keepers prefer to have the ducks housed at night and in severe weather, and give them approximately the same s.p.a.ce that would be given to an equal number of fowls.

The floor of the house should be littered with straw, hay, or shavings.

The object of littering the floors of duck houses is not to afford them exercise, but to provide them with dry bedding. The droppings of ducks are very watery, and the bedding must be changed often enough to keep the ducks clean. It is customary to provide shallow nest boxes, placing them on the floor next the wall, preferably in a corner. The ducks are quite as likely to leave their eggs anywhere on the floor, or out in the yard (if they are let out before they lay), but the nests are there if they want them, and many will use the nests regularly.

The only other furnishings needed are a feed trough and a drinking vessel, but it is advisable to have a tub or a pan in which the birds can take a bath, and to supply them with water in this once or twice a week. The drinking vessel must be one that they cannot get into, for if they can get into it they will certainly do so. An ordinary wooden water pail, or a small b.u.t.ter tub with the part above the upper hoop sawed off, makes a very satisfactory drinking vessel for adult ducks. It will hold enough water for the ducks to partially wash themselves, which they do by dipping their heads in the water and then rubbing them on their bodies and wings. For the regular bath for two or three ducks one of the largest-sized bath pans made for pigeons will do very well, or an old washtub cut down to six or eight inches deep may be used. For a flock of eight or ten ducks a good tub may be made from one end of a mola.s.ses hogshead. The bath should always be given outdoors, because it takes the ducks only a few minutes to splash so much water out of the tub that everything around it is thoroughly wet. The drinking water should also be given outdoors whenever the houses are open.

As the ducks of the breeds usually kept can hardly fly at all, very low part.i.tions and fences will keep them in their quarters, but to keep other poultry or animals out of their yards it may be necessary to build higher fences. For the heavier breeds, like the Pekin and Rouen, fences are usually made from 18 inches to 24 inches high. The ducks will rarely attempt to go over these, but occasionally a drake learns to climb a two-foot fence by using his bill, wings, and toes, and may then manage to get over a higher fence. For the small, light breeds, fences 3 or 4 feet high may be needed. If their yard is on a slope and is large enough to give them a chance to start a flight high up on the slope, so that they will rise above the fence at the lower side, it may be necessary either to put a very high fence on that side or to cover the yard.

While the fence for ducks need not be either high or strong, there must be no holes in it that a duck, having put its head through, could by pressure enlarge enough to let its body pa.s.s. A piece of wire netting that has begun to rust a little may be as good as ever for fowls for a long time, but if used for a duck fence it will be most unsatisfactory, because the ducks will soon make many holes in it. If wire netting alone is used, it should be fastened to the ground with pegs every three or four feet.

=Feeding.= The feeding of ducks differs from the feeding of hens in that ducks need mostly soft food, and that, if the keeper wishes to force growth or egg production, they may be fed much larger proportions of such concentrated foods as beef sc.r.a.ps and meat meals. As has been stated, in its natural state the duck gets the greater part of its food from the water. This is all soft food, and the bird swallows a great deal of water with it. It does not, therefore, need a large crop in which to soak its food before it pa.s.ses into the gizzard. So the crop of the duck is small--merely an enlargement of the gullet. Some of the old books on poultry say that the duck has no crop, but you can see by looking at a duck that has just had a full meal that the food it has taken remains in the pa.s.sage, sometimes filling it right up to the throat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 130. Pekin duckling six weeks old]

With a mash (just the same as is given to hens) morning and evening, a cabbage to pick at, plenty of drinking water, and a supply of oyster sh.e.l.l always before them, ducks will do very well. If they have no cabbage, about one third (by bulk) of the mash should be cut clover or alfalfa. When the days are long, it is a good plan to give them a little cracked corn or whole wheat about noon. The water supply should always be replenished just before feeding, for as soon as a duck has taken a few mouthfuls of food of any kind, it wants a drink of water.

=Laying habits.= With the exception of the ducks of the Indian Runner type, which lay some eggs at other seasons, as hens do, ducks usually lay very persistently for about six months, and then stop entirely for about six months. Occasionally ducks of other breeds lay a few eggs in the autumn, but this trait has not been developed in them as it has in the Indian Runner. If they are comfortably housed and well fed, Pekin and Rouen Ducks usually begin to lay in January. If they are allowed to expose themselves to rough weather, and are fed indifferently, they may not begin to lay until March or April. When they do begin, they usually lay much more steadily than hens until hot weather comes, and then gradually decrease their production until by midsummer they have stopped altogether.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 131. Pekin drake four months old, weighing nine pounds]