Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 209, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1917 — POULTRY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POULTRY

CARE OF DUCKS. The requirements of ducks are so few that anyone can raise them. They are less bother than chickens, not requiring such varied feeding, and a fence two feet high will keep them where you wish them to stay, says one writer. They will not dig up the garden, never fly up onto anything, and are never troubled with lice or bowel troubles as are chickens. You can feed them the same kind of feed from the fifth day after they hatch until they are full grown, which they will be in 10 or 12 weeks. Do not feed the young ducklings until they are 36 hours old, taking particular pains to see that they are kept dry and warm. It is not desirable to try to raise them with hens, as they step on so many of them and the ducks are even worse to raise them with. Brooders are much less bother and will raise a larger per cent of them. For the first five days feed bread crumbled and moistened with milk,

adding a heaping tablespoonful at sharp, gifted sand. After the fifth day feed one and a haff pounds of middlings, one and a hall pounds of chop, three pounds of bran and one and a half pounds of sifted sharp sand, well mixed, and a small amount at a time wet up into a crumbly mash. Never feed only what they will clean up In ten minutes, three times a day, always giving fresh water when you feed them, and be very sure that none of the feed is dry or they will choke to death. CREMATE DEAD FOWLS. The average amateur poultry raiser has a handy spot in some corner of his yard for burying dead chicks and fowls. Their ailment may be roup, cholera, .gapes, or any other contagious disease, yet when .the bodies are buried or thrown into the compost heap the poultryman considers his duty well done. The careless burial of victims of any contagious disease is a crime against the living. In the poultry yard it is well to remember that earthworms work unceasingly, disintegrating the soil and bringing disease germs to the surface. Cremation of all fowls that die Is the best plan. Fire is called “the great destroyer,” for there Is no chance for contagion from asfaes. Fowls may be cremated in any kind of a furnace or stove. Simply wrap the body in paper saturated with coal oil, and it will burn fiercely and sometimes not leave even a bone. There is no odor or unpleasantness about such a process, and surely It is less labor than digging holes for burial. In the summer one may make a small outdoor crematory with a few bricks and an old, burned-out grate.