Most of the ducklings
are raised by hen mothers, and she keeps some fifty hens for that
purpose. The hens are all pure Buff Cochins, and are kept until they are
two years and a half old. Besides raising two broods of ducks each
season, each hen pays her owner an average profit of seventy-five cents
a year from the sale of eggs for market. When fattened for market at the
end of the second season, these Cochin hens are large and heavy, and the
carcass of the old fowl generally sells for enough to pay for a pullet
to take her place. No chickens are raised on the farm; the pullets are
bought of a neighbor who keeps the Buff Cochins.
She aims to set several hens and the incubator at the same time; when
the eggs hatch the incubator ducklings are divided up among the hens;
one hen will care for twenty ducklings until they are old enough to care
for themselves. The eggs hatch well--those in the incubator quite as
well as those under hens, and when the incubator ducklings are once
mixed up with the others she finds it impossible to distinguish "which
from 'tother."
When the ducklings are ten or twelve hours old they are moved with the
mother hen to coops and safety runs, which are placed in an orchard near
the house.
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