DUCKS IN JAVA

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVII, Issue 21508, 22 November 1939, Page 3

DUCKS IN JAVA

TRAINED TO LAY DAILY EGG BEFORE 6 A.M. In the East there are ways of making a living never dreamt of by the average Britisher. Mr C. C. Odlin, who has just returned from a visit to the Dutch East Indies and Malaya told Wellington Rotarians of Javanese who bred a young army of ducks and then set out to travel the highway with them. There are in some uas s 500 to 600 ducks, which are in charge of herdsmen. They are divided in groups and each group is trained to follow its own particular flag, borne in front by the herdsman. The mission of these ducks is to gain employment in the farms and plantations along the road, eating up the worms, slugs and snails, and so cleaning up the land, which they also fertilise. The eggs they lay are sold in the market place of each little village along the route.

Strange as it seemed, said Mr Odlin, the ducks were trained to lay their dally egg rot later than 6 a.m. If a duck laid its egg later than that it was punished, and by that means was soon taught that to avoid punishment it had to be punctual. These ducks might travel for 300 or 400 i tiles till gradually as they grew older and laid eggs less frequently they were killed off and sold.