Homestead Duck and Goose Production
From Jack Widmer's Practical Animal Husbandry, here's an article on duck and goose production, breeding, feeding, home-grown goslings and ducklings, etc.
Back in 1949 — before factory farming and the "pump
'em full of chemicals" school of agriculture blitzed the
country — a fellow named Jack Widmer wrote a little
book called PRACTICAL ANIMAL HUSBANDRY. Now that
manual wasn't what you'd call completely exhaustive, the
writing style wasn't the best and a few of the ideas it
advanced — such as confining laying hens in cages
— were later refined into the kind of automated
farming that so many of us are fighting against these days.
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Still, PRACTICAL ANIMAL HUSBANDRY contained a good
deal of basic information that today's "homesteaders" all
too often need and don't know where to find. I'm pleased,
then, that the publisher of the book, Charles Scribner's
Sons, has granted me permission to reprint excerpts from
this out-of-print manual. I think that many of my readers
will find the following information both interesting and
informative. — MOTHER.
Excerpts from PRACTICAL ANIMAL HUSBANDRY by Jack
Widmer are reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner's
Sons. Copyright 1949 by Charles Scribner's Sons.
» DUCK PRODUCTION
Ducks are much easier to raise than chickens or turkeys.
They are subject to few diseases, are sturdy enough to live
through a more variable brooding temperature than other
fowl, and if given half a chance will weigh from five to
six pounds at eleven weeks, an ideal butchering age for
that delicacy of delicacies, Roast Long Island Duckling.
Their feeding is a simple matter, their feeds easily mixed,
and the amateur agriculturist will have more encouraging
results from ducks than he will from most members of the
home barnyard.
True, it is almost essential for breeding ducks to have
access to some sort of water in which they may swim during
the breeding season for egg fertility is tremendously
increased if they have a good swimming hole; but this can
be supplied by either streams, lakes, or man-made pools
that need not be very large to accommodate all the ducks
that the average family will require for home consumption.
In the event that a swimming hole is not practical, then
the country dweller may purchase day-old ducklings and
fatten them without swimming facilities.
Ducks do not require elaborate housing arrangements (four
square feet per breeding duck is sufficient . . . three
square feet for fattening birds) and barrels, packing
crates or other waste material make excellent nesting
boxes. In moderate climates ducks will not require any but
natural shelter and the ducks themselves, beyond being a
bit on the noisy side, are interesting and intelligent
birds and give little worry in relation to their many
advantages.
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