Sharing experience in raising ducks in wild rice stem fields: How to raise ducks well in wild rice stem fields

Putting ducks out to range in wild rice stem fields was not an idea the farmers of Huishan Town came up with suddenly. It was learned from the “rice field duck raising” practice in Gaobu Town, Yuecheng District, Shaoxing, and even the ducklings released were Shaoxing partridge ducks.  

Many farmers were initially worried that the ducks would run around and trample the seedlings, and were also afraid the ducks would eat the seedlings. “In fact, ducks do not eat seedlings.” said Fei Huailin, deputy secretary-general of the Provincial Agricultural Technology Extension Foundation. Rice seedling leaves have serrated edges, and a duck's flat bill cannot swallow them. They only eat the smooth leaves of weeds. Ducks will not eat wild rice stem leaves either.  

To prevent ducks from trampling the seedlings, generally one must wait until half a month after the seedlings are planted; for wild rice stem fields, one must wait until the wild rice stem seedlings grow to 30 cm high before releasing the ducks. The number of ducks released must also be controlled; a suitable release ratio is 10-15 ducks per mu of field.  

Rice field duck raising and wild rice stem field duck raising are both concentrated in summer, and controlling the release time has a great impact on the survival rate of the ducks. When Tangxi Town in Jinhua began rice field duck raising in 2001, the ducks were released in the fields for most of the daytime, but because the water temperature was too high, only 5 of the 12 ducks released per mu survived. Later, the release time was adjusted: at 5 a.m. every day the ducks were put into the field, driven back into the shed before 10 a.m., driven out again after 5 p.m., and driven back again at 8 p.m. The survival rate rose to above 90%.