Identifier: howwemakeduckspa00amer (find matches)
Title: How we make ducks pay ... an illustrated guide to the profitable breeding of our modern Pekin all-white mammoth ducklings; plain and thorough lessons for beginners and others everywhere who write for the details and secrets of our waterless method..
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: American Pekin Duck Company, Boston
Subjects: Ducks
Publisher: Boston, Mass., American Pekin duck company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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gree of skill isrequired. It is a real trade. Old clothes should be worn in picking. The pro-fessional picker takes off all his clothes before beginningwork in the morning, puts on an old shirt and a pair of full-length overalls which are white to begin. They are firstoiled with raw linseed oil and left outdoors in the sun todry for a week, then they are given a coat of hnseed oil andvarnish. This makes the overalls moisture proof. Theyare generally worn by the picker until worn out. Theyare never washed. They are hard and stiff—like armorplate. In the picking room there should be a barrel or box ofhme, air-slaking. This air-slaked hme is sprinkled aroundthe picking room on the blood on the floor, to keep the placesweet. The picker who makes a slip and cuts the skin of theduckhng, or rips it, must sew it up. For this purpose eachpicker has a needle and a spool of thread and if he makesa cut or rip he quickly sews it. When he has done this itis almost impossible to find the place. 77
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DUCK PICKER AT WORK KILLING, PICKING, SHIPPING The professional picker generally strops his knife byturning it on the strop on the edge, not on the back, as arazor is stropped. However, each man has his own wayof keeping his knives sharp. A good picker should pick from forty to fifty ducks in aday. More than fifty a day is above the ordinary. Oftena skillful picker is found who will average sixty-five a day. Each picker has a counter or tally device like a baseballumpires counter, and as he finishes a bird he turns thecounter. He puts the bird, when he is done with it, into a tankfilled with water. This tank is made with compartments,eight or ten of them. Each picker has his own compart-ment for the birds which he picks, so that his work canbe checked by the foreman. The foreman, who is gener-ally the man who ties up the birds and carries them forwardto the shipping boxes, takes the birds one at a time fromthe pickers tank and washes them to get the blood off^,and the dirt off the fee

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