What do wild ducks eat to grow, and what breeds are there?

The wild duck is a relatively valuable rare bird, widely farmed by people because of its high food value, but to successfully farm wild ducks, they need to be domesticated and their basic living habits understood, so what do wild ducks eat to grow? What breeds are there?

What do wild ducks eat to grow?

1. Wild ducks eat many things; fish and shrimp in rivers and tender grass on land are all fine. The foods they eat include forage grass, aquatic plants, small fish, small shrimp, and the like. Wild ducks are mainly herbivorous in feeding habits, and during the breeding season they also eat insects, mollusks, crustaceans, small fish, and small animals of the class Amphibia, etc.

2. The wild duck is a typical representative of water birds, belonging to the class Aves, order Anseriformes, family Anatidae, with a very large number and variety. It has high food value, tender meat, is rich in nutrients, and has a strong wild flavor. It is a migratory bird, fond of living in flocks and roosting in groups, with omnivorous feeding habits, often feeding on small fish, small shrimp, crustaceans, insects, as well as plant seeds, stems, leaves, algae, and grains, or some cereals.

Wild duck feed combinations

1. Peanut powder, bran, soybean cake powder, freshwater shrimp powder, red worm powder, sunflower seed powder, bone meal, compound vitamin B, vitamin A, lysine, salt, angelica powder

2. Pork liver powder, miscellaneous fish powder, insect powder, bone meal, soybean cake powder, corn flour, pumpkin seed powder, etc.

Wild duck feed combinations for each period:

1. Ducklings

Corn 50%, rapeseed cake 20%, broken rice 10%, bran 10%, fish meal 7.5%, meat meal 1%, shell powder 1%, salt 0.5%.

2. Growing ducks

Corn 50%, wheat 17%, bran 12%, broken rice 10%, rapeseed cake 5%, fish meal 4.5%, shell powder 1%, salt 0.5%.

The feed should have good palatability, stable nutritional composition, and be easy to store.

3. Laying period

Corn 51%, soybean meal 22%, rapeseed meal or cottonseed meal 3%, wheat middlings 10%, stone powder 9.7%, premix 4%, salt 0.3%. The main components of the additives include amino acids, vitamins, and minerals, etc.

Vitamin additives can completely replace the nutritional function contained in green feed; they can not only supplement vitamins, but also save a large amount of green feed, reduce the labor intensity of duck farmers, and lower the production cost of duck farming.

Introduction to wild duck species:

1. Mallard

The mallard is the most common relatively large wild duck. The domesticated mallard has strong disease resistance, a high survival rate, wide adaptability, good gregariousness, diverse feeding habits, and is easy to raise; it also has the advantages of low feed consumption and a short raising cycle. Farmed mallards are plump, but fatty without being greasy, with tender, delicious meat, rich nutrition, and a strong gamey flavor; they have always been regarded as a top-grade game dish and are renowned at home and abroad.

2. Spot-billed duck

Plumage brown, upper bill black with a yellow spot at the tip, wing speculum purple-blue.

3. Garganey

Crown and throat blackish brown, with a white eyebrow stripe, wing speculum grayish green.

4. Eurasian teal

Small in size, wing speculum metallic green, head deep chestnut, with green bands on both sides.

5. Northern shoveler

The front end of the bill is expanded into a spatula shape, head and neck blackish purple, chest white, wing speculum green, belly reddish brown.

6. Eurasian wigeon

Crown brownish white, head and neck mostly chestnut red, back grayish white with dark streaks, wing speculum dark grayish brown.

7. Baikal teal

Neck and undertail coverts velvet black, sides of the face brownish white, with black stripes running through below the eyes and at the base of the neck, wing speculum copper green.

8. Falcated duck

Crown chestnut, crest feathers on the sides and back of the head copper green, throat pure white, a black collar on the front neck, body plumage grayish.

9. Northern pintail

Head dark brown, sides of the neck and underparts joined into a bright white, wing speculum dark copper green, central tail feathers elongated.

10. Gadwall

Upperparts mostly dark grayish brown, mixed with wavy white lines, chest brown with crescent-shaped white lines, belly grayish white, wing speculum black and white.