DUCK RAISING TECHNIQUES

The first 14 days are one of the most important stage in a duck's life, so special attention should be paid to the following basic factors:

• Feed and drink must be fresh, clean, and adequate at all times. Ducks should not be fed 24 hours after hatching and should be given water immediately after releasing into the nursery house.

+ During the first week, feed the ducks with flat feeding trays, each tray serves 50-60 ducks. From the 3rd week onwards, gradually switch to feeding trays that are designed for big ducks and can be raised and lowered to make it convenient to control the feeding process.

+ Drinking water: use a white gallon bottle to feed the ducks with water. Each bottle serves from 50-60 ducks. After about 5 days, gradually replace bottles with automatic water troughs with a suitable height and alternately placed around the nursery lights..

• Regularly check to make sure the nursery lights always work properly.
• Regularly check the ducks to ensure that the ducks adapt to temperature conditions. Check the following signs to see whether ducks well adapt to nursery conditions: even distribution of the ducks in the nursery house and ducks’ gizzards. The flexibility of the substances contained in the gizzards shows that the ducks find a very good source of food and water.
• Light intensity:

• Temperature: adjust the house temperature based on the number of lights.

The ducks’ weight must be controlled during this stage so that the ducks reach a uniform standard weight. Therefore, the amount of food plays an important role in this stage. It is required to maintain a proper diet and provide the correct amount of food for the ducks based on their weights to reach the standard quality.

• Light and wind: it is recommended to design a fan system to ensure good air circulation in the house. Light levels must be adjusted properly:

• Drinking water: provide adequate clean water twice a day
• Standard diet:

Both male and female ducks develop their genital organs during this stage, so it is necessary to let female and male ducks of 19 weeks old live together to stimulate their genital development. In this stage, we need to pay special attention:

• DMaintain or increase the amount of feed to ensure that the ducks’ weights increase according to the standard weight. The ducks’ weights should not remain unchanged or reduce. And the uniformity of the flock must be 80% at least.
• Light and temperature: if the ducks are raised in a hot environment of over 30ºC, it is required to design a misting system to cool down the ducks apart from the fan system.
• At this stage, we should provide for the ducks with enough water, and replace the square water troughs with the long ones to make the ducks feel the most comfortable when laying eggs.
• Standard diet:

During this stage, the ducks eat very slowly, so it is necessary to create the most comfortable feeling for the dusks. If it takes too long for the ducks to consume feed, we can divide the ducks’ diet into several meals to ensure the feeds are always new, thereby stimulating the ducks to eat the most.

Standard diet:

Handling eggs:

• Collecting eggs:In order to achieve the maximum hatch rate and good quality ducks, the eggs should be kept in the best condition from being delivered until being placed in the incubator. So we need:

  • To wash hands thoroughly before and after collecting eggs.

  • To avoid creating any crack even the smallest ones on each eggshell, keep the eggs clean and dry.

  • To keep collected eggs in egg trays, avoid using egg trays made from plastic which is likely to cause damage and contamination to the eggs.

• Classifying eggs: remove the eggs that cannot be hatched like the eggs that are too light, or dirty, or cracked, or double-yolked, or deformed, etc. Keep the eggs clean and dry at a temperature of 18 to 20ºC.