LAYING BREEDS OF DUCKS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1717, 25 January 1905, Page 67 (Supplement)

LAYING BREEDS OF DUCKS

("Live Stock Journal.") It is noAV some years since the utility value of the Indian Runner was demonstrated, and the duck proved to be specially valuable on a farm, but the breed makes little headway in the South of England; in the North, however, it is largely amd increasingly kept. I should like especially to call the attention of farmers to it. Runners are dps table ducks, they only weigh between four and five pounds, but they are remarkably good layers and should be ken.; us egg-pioducers. Remarkable .indeeu are the egg records of many strains of Runners, especially when we remember they are not bred to lay as hene are ; Lavo hundred egg strains —are fairly common But this is not the only good point oi the Runner; they are the Leghorns of the duck Avorld. Insatiable foragers and small eaters, they will Avander a mile away and more in search of natural food, but never fail to come home by night* fall.

The name they go by is due to their peculiai carriage; they run, and do not waddle like our table-breed®, and being very close feathered look even ©mailer than they are; they have long heads and necks and long slender bodies, no keel to the breast, and walk very upright like the Pekin, the legs being set very far back. The colour is fawn and white. They start laying soon after they are four mouths old, and may be kept several seasons; as many as five ducks can also run with tbe drake when the eggs are wanted for incubation. The eggs are white in colour, and weigh five or six to the pound; in the North they find no difficulty in selling them for table or cooking, as they have no rank flavour.. But perhaps the best point of all about* Runners is that they do not require swim* ming water, the eggs coming quite fen tile when there is no pond for them; even when they have swimming water they do not stay on it so much as other breeds, one swim a day contenting them. Runners should be kept in small lots, each having a house and run, and be restrained in the latter till about 10 o’clock to ensure getting all the eggs; then they can be let out. They are not suitable for confinement, as then they fret, and this is one reason why they suit the farmer so well. They clear the land of grubs and insects, and, especially on ploughed land, do an immensity of good, as they follow the plough like rooks, and nothing alive misses their eye. They can also be kept in moveable houses, and they run over potato and mangold fields without doing harm to the crop, but it is not wise to give them their liberty beioi'e 10 o’clock, as otherwise eggs may be lost. Eor early ducKimgs, when size is not so important a consideration, Runners do very well, and as they almost invariably lay long before Aylesbury, Pekins, or Rouens, by keeping them we get earlier ducklings than we would otherwise. Also wo can mate the ducks with a drake of one of the above-mentioned breeds, and so get bigger ducklings than pure Runners.

There are other laying breeds of ducks, but. they all rank after the Runner. One breed which is increasing in popularity is the Khaki. This i® of a yellow or khaki colour, except the drake’s head and stern, which are bronze green. Khakis are partly Indian Runners, and resemble them in their activity and egglaying capacity; they generally begin to lay at six months old, irrespective of tlie time of year they are hatched. A veiry pojitiliir duck m America, but which, for some reason, does not seem to have followed the Leghorn, the Wyandotte, ami otlier favourites from the United States poult ly yards here is tlie blue Swedish. These ducks are- nearly as large as Bakin® and lay i\:> well as Indian \ •$. according to report: in fact, tiie American poultry-keeper apueai'j to find ;hem his most profitable

duck. We have, however, a blue Orpington in this country which is said to bo very much the same; it has not, however, spread to any great extent out of the yards of its ongnator. There is said, also, to be a local blue breed of ducks in Lancashire. But none of these blue breeds, all of which seem to have originated from sports when bi-ck and whtie ducks were crossed, breed true to colour; this, of course, does not impair their value as utility ducks. While on the subject of laying breeds of ducks the very uncertain laying powers of tho table breeds is worthy of comment. Hitherto, poultry-keepers as a bv>dy have very much this point. Bucks lay well and ill separately, and with some weeding out of bad layers would result in better averages. A si pie way, though it certainly entails trouble, is to shut up each duck at night separately, dividing off the duck-house into small pens for this purpose. Each duck should be marked, s> that no confusion between them can arise. Some strains of Aylesburys lay 70 and 80 eggs in the year, others less than half, Rouens very similarly, and Bekins, though better layers as a rule than either of the foregoing, sometimes lay badly. The duck-keeper should not be satisfied to keep ducks that lay badly; g >od layers will cost no more to feed, and will be twioe as profitable. The first thing to do is to keep a careful

record of the eggs laid by the ducks, and see what the average is, then if it is bad, get rid of them, or try to remove all the bad layers.