How to Raise Laying Ducks? A Detailed Explanation of Breeding Methods and Technical Key Points
In recent years, our country's laying duck breeding industry has developed rapidly, and the scale of duck raising has continued to expand, gradually transitioning from the traditional one-household raising to specialized duck-raising villages, duck-raising production cooperatives, and leading enterprises plus duck-raising households or large-scale duck-raising enterprise groups. Today, as duck-raising numbers and regions continue to expand, scientific feeding of laying ducks and major disease prevention and control techniques have become the focus of attention for duck farms and households. For this reason, the successful experiences from production practice are summarized as follows:
Five Key Points for Raising Laying Ducks
1. When ducks in the laying period see the keeper carrying a feed basin into the duck pen and quickly gather around to compete for food, it indicates a strong appetite, and they can be fed a little more; conversely, it indicates poor appetite, and they should be fed a little less.
2. If the duck eggs produced are plump and round in shape, it indicates sufficient feed and fat ducks, and good feeding management. If the large end of the egg is somewhat small, it is a sign of insufficient early feeding; if the small end is somewhat pointed, it is a sign of insufficient midday feeding, and in both cases sufficient feed should be supplemented.
3. Thin eggshells, with sand holes, or rough or soft shells indicate a calcium deficiency, and mineral feeds such as calcium powder, bone meal, and shell powder should be supplemented in a timely manner to ensure complete nutrition.
4. With sufficient water and feed, the eggs laid by ducks are plump in shape and large in size, generally 14 eggs per 1 kg; under conditions of insufficient feed and water, it takes 16-18 eggs to make 1 kg. Normally, the feeding management of ducks should be adjusted according to the weight of the duck eggs.
5. If ducks lay eggs between 2 and 5 in the morning, it indicates proper feeding; if the laying time is delayed and the eggs laid become smaller and smaller, it indicates that laying is about to stop, and concentrated feed should be supplemented promptly to raise the nutritional level of the laying ducks.
Select Excellent Breeds
Excellent laying duck breeds producing 250-300 eggs per year include: Shaoxing duck (suitable for confinement raising and grazing), Jiangnan No. 1 and Jiangnan No. 2 (suitable for confinement raising), Youxian partridge duck (suitable for grazing), Putian black duck (suitable for soft and hard beach raising), and Enshi partridge duck (suitable for raising in mountainous areas at an altitude of 800-1200 m), etc.
Site Selection and House Construction
The site should be far from villages, towns, poultry trading places, factories, and ponds, reservoirs, and slow-flowing stream and river banks where the soil and water source are free from disease contamination and other pollution, and be suitable for building houses to raise laying ducks. The site soil should be breathable and permeable, preferably sandy soil, and should also be sheltered from wind and face the sun, maintaining a gentle slope of about 10 degrees with the water surface. The usable area of the duck house is calculated at 6-8 birds per square meter, and each shed house is best for raising 900-1000 birds. The duck house is built with bamboo, wood, or plastic materials, with a width of 8-10 m, a length controlled within 70 m, an eaves height of 2.5-3 m, and a height of about 3.5 m. Around the perimeter, straw curtains or hollow plastic boards are hung up to the eaves, and transparent plastic film is used inside to block the wind. Inside the house, for every 100 sq m, install 3 60-watt electric lights and 2 15-watt red bulbs.
Fermentation bed confinement raising or free-range raising can be used. The bedding material for fermentation bed duck raising is mainly composed of sawdust, rice husks, wood shavings, mushroom residue, straw powder, bean dregs, peanut shells, distiller's grains, rapeseed shells, etc. Choose bedding materials according to local conditions, and try to choose bedding material components that are relatively easy to find locally. The more diverse the components making up the bedding material, the better its nutritional properties, and the more quickly it will promote the healthy growth of ducks. When making a duck-raising fermentation bed, first mix 95% of the various bedding materials you have prepared with 5% sand grains free from chemical fertilizer and pesticide contamination, stir evenly, then add Chunxin bacterial liquid and mix and stir evenly with the bedding material, ferment for about 5 days to make a fermentation bed of about 40 cm , then directly spread clean straw or wheat straw, etc., about 20 cm thick on the surface of the fermentation bed, and then the ducks can be put in to be raised; for grazing free-range raising, there should be a dry, slightly sloped but level exercise yard in front of the house, 2 times larger than the duck house. The water exercise area for ducks should be more than three times larger than the duck house, and nets or bamboo fences should be built around it.
Four-Season Feeding Management
1. Spring: Keep the duck house dry and ventilated, frequently add bedding material, do a good job of disinfection and cleaning hygiene, and manually supplement light for 4-5 hours every day. To favor high and stable production, the crude protein content in the daily ration should reach 18%, and metabolizable energy should reach 11.3-11.7 MJ per kg, with green feed and concentrated feed each accounting for 50%. When the female ducks begin laying, mix 1 kg of honey into 50 kg of feed and feed continuously for 3 days, stop for 2 weeks, then feed again for 3 days. Such alternating feeding can not only prevent duck plague but also increase the laying rate. Laying ducks should be supplemented with calcium starting from 15 weeks of age, at a dosage of 2.5% of the daily ration; thereafter it should be gradually increased; when the laying rate is 60%, the calcium content of the daily ration is 2.8%; when the laying rate is 65-80%, it is 3%; when the laying rate is above 80%, it is 3.5%. The calcium source is best as shell powder or bone meal or cooked eggshell powder. The supply of vitamin D should also be ensured in the daily ration to control the calcium-to-phosphorus ratio at 5-6.5:1. According to the level of the laying rate, ensure 14-17 hours per day; light is very important to facilitate the synthesis of vitamin D in the body and the absorption of calcium, thereby increasing the laying rate.
2. Summer: Do a good job of heat prevention and cooling. Remove the straw curtains around the duck house or open the skylight roof to facilitate air circulation. Insist on letting the ducks out early and shutting them in late, do not drive the ducks into the house in the evening, and only drive them in at 23-24 o'clock at night. Ensure the duck flock has sufficient drinking water, preferably well water. For young ducks, avoid too high a protein content in the daily ration, so as to avoid premature aging and shortening of the laying period. Feed more coarse and green feed to prevent precocious puberty. In addition, young ducks are best not fed pellet feed, but should be fed mixed powder feed. This is because pellet feed can stimulate appetite, cause ducks to grow too fat, and be unfavorable for laying. For ducks that laid many eggs in spring and have not molted, adding 1-2% fried and crushed sesame or rapeseed, etc., to the daily ration can increase the summer laying rate. In summer, the fermentation bed bedding material should be turned more frequently so that manure can be decomposed and transformed in a timely manner, and the density of ducks in the house should be appropriately reduced, with attention paid to the disinfection and hygiene of utensils and sites. 3. Autumn: To maintain a high production rate, artificial light supplementation should be carried out, maintaining 16 hours of light per day, while appropriately supplementing the supply of animal-source protein and green feed. Ducks that have stopped laying should be culled or eliminated early or forced to molt. 4. Winter: Do a good job of cold prevention and warmth preservation, promptly hang the straw curtains around the duck house, and strictly prevent drafts from entering. Frequently add dry bedding material and appropriately thicken the fermentation bed to help with heat preservation. The metabolizable energy level of the winter daily ration should be raised to 12.1-12.5 MJ per kg. In the morning, ducks should be let out late, and in the evening, shut in early, and normally go into the water less (once each in the morning and afternoon when the temperature is high, 10 minutes each time). Before the ducks are let out of the house, they should be stirred up in the house for 5-10 minutes. Around noon, appropriately open windows for ventilation, and in winter artificial light supplementation should also be carried out, maintaining 16 hours of light per day.
Matching Males and Females
The stronger the sexual desire of the ducks, the more eggs they lay. Therefore, sufficient male ducks should be provided in the laying duck flock. For small-flock raising, match one male duck per 100 female ducks; for large-flock raising, raise one male duck per 200 female ducks, which can increase the laying rate by 5%-8%. For egg-type breeding ducks, raise one male duck per 20-30 female ducks. For commercial ducks, isolate the male ducks during the laying period, rest period, and molting period to avoid disturbance.
Regular Epidemic Prevention
Do a solid job in epidemic prevention. To prevent duck plague, attenuated duck plague vaccine can be used; after 20 days of age, ducklings are vaccinated with 0.5 mL injected into the leg muscle of each bird, and adult ducks are injected with 1 mL into the chest muscle of each bird each time, with adult ducks injected once every 6 months. For prevention, fowl cholera aluminum hydroxide vaccine can be used; after 20 days of age, ducklings are injected with 1 mL into the leg muscle of each bird, and at 3 months of age, 2 mL is injected into the chest muscle, with an immunization period of 75 days. Terramycin can also be used, at a dosage of 5 tablets of 250,000 units of Terramycin per 100 ducks, ground into powder and mixed into feed or dissolved in water, fed once every 2-3 weeks.
At present, the international duck egg market looks promising, and exports of duck eggs and duck egg products show a trend of substantial growth, with the annual export volume of duck eggs having reached about 50,000 tons. Domestic market demand is also very strong, with annual duck egg output of about 3 million tons, less than 2.5 kg per person on average, and future duck egg consumption will continue to rise. Our country's duck-raising industry has a long history and is the world's largest duck egg consumer and trader, ranking among the world's leaders in duck-raising numbers, breed resources, and production technology, and the development of the laying duck breeding industry has huge potential and broad prospects.