Experience Sharing on Feeding and Management of Breeding Ducks During the Brooding Period

To lay a good foundation for reserve ducks and breeding ducks, the feeding work during the brooding period must be done well. The brooding period for parent-stock breeding ducks is 0-4 weeks of age. After hatching, ducklings are very delicate and require artificial selection or creation of a suitable living environment, along with careful feeding and management so that they can fully adapt to external conditions, grow and develop healthily, and maintain good physical condition and a high survival rate. To do a good job of brooding-period management, the following points must be carried out well:

  1. First of all, achieve “early drinking, early feeding; drink first, then feed.” After the breeding ducks arrive, let the ducklings drink water as early as possible, adding electrolyte multivitamins and antibiotics and other drugs to the drinking water, using them continuously for 3-5 days, which helps enhance the ducklings' resistance. After 15-30 minutes of drinking, they can be started on feed; use duckling feed at the start of feeding, and the particle size of the duckling feed should be suitable for the ducklings to eat. After feeding begins, water must not be cut off at any time.  2. Second, do a good job of heat preservation. After hatching, ducklings have sparse down, very thin subcutaneous fat, poor heat-retention ability, and weak resistance to external cold. Within the first week of age, the brooding room should be kept within the range of 30℃-35℃; within the second week of age, keep it within the range of 25℃-30℃; after the third week, gradually reduce the temperature to natural temperature.  3. Drive apart piles and divide into groups. Because ducklings are strongly gregarious, even when the brooding temperature is suitable, ducklings often huddle together while resting. If the brooding temperature is on the low side, huddling becomes even more serious, and ducklings are easily crushed to death or injured. Therefore, the condition of the ducklings must be observed frequently; when huddling is found, immediately drive them apart, and appropriately divide them into groups and raise the temperature of the brooding room, so as to reduce duckling deaths and increase the survival rate.  4. Maintain a reasonable density. The activity space for the duck flock should be as ample as possible; during the brooding period, the area required per duck should preferably be 3-5 times larger than the body area. Suitable densities for floor rearing are: 1 week of age 20-25 birds/sq m, 2 weeks of age 10-15 birds/sq m, 3 weeks of age 6-10 birds/sq m, 4 weeks of age 4-6 birds/sq m. If the site is relatively spacious, the density can be lowered further. If the density is too high, the duck flock becomes crowded, which is not conducive to drinking and feeding, affects growth and development, easily causes the spread of disease, and easily causes restlessness in the flock, the appearance of feather pecking, poor rest, slow growth, an uneven flock, dirty duck bodies, and an increased death rate. The density of the duck flock should gradually decrease as the age in days increases, and can be adjusted according to seasonal changes (density can be greater in winter and should be smaller in summer) as well as the growth condition of the ducklings and the environmental sanitation condition. 5. Feeding standards during the brooding period. In actual feeding, the feed amount should be increased by 10%-15% on the basis of the standard, otherwise it is very difficult to reach the body weight standard. Our farm generally adopts the method of free feeding from 0-28 days, and only controls the feed intake after 5 weeks of age. In short, brooding is a very meticulous task and is also related to the success or failure of duck raising; as long as one is familiar with the characteristics of ducklings and strengthens feeding and management, good ducklings can be raised.