How to effectively improve the survival rate during meat duck breeding
Select good ducklings
To buy ducklings, go to a breeder duck farm with good epidemic prevention work. The breeder ducks must be strictly vaccinated against diseases such as fowl cholera, colibacillosis, duck plague, avian influenza, and viral hepatitis according to the immunization program, and the hatchery's epidemic prevention conditions must comply with national regulations. When selecting ducklings, hold them in your hand and they should feel plump and strong, with glossy feathers, robust and lively, and loud calls. The selected ducklings should be uniform in size.
Do a good job at the brooding stage
1. Sanitation and disinfection work of the brooding house: Before the ducklings arrive, clean the brooding house thoroughly, completely wash away the duck manure, spray once with a disinfectant (0.2% Baidusha solution), and clean, dry, and disinfect the drinkers, feed trays, feed troughs, etc.
2. Brooding methods for meat ducks: Large-scale meat duck raising generally uses floor brooding and wire-net brooding. Wire-net brooding has more advantages than floor brooding: a better sanitary environment, higher brooding density and utilization rate of the brooding house, reduced occurrence of duckling diseases and lower mortality, improved survival rate during the brooding period, and higher feed conversion efficiency and faster growth of ducklings.
Management during the brooding period
1. Brooding temperature: Newly hatched ducklings have poor thermoregulation ability, so heat preservation must be done well. The brooding temperature for 1 to 3 days of age is 30°C to 32°C, then the temperature drops by 1°C every 2 days thereafter, and heating is stopped when the house temperature drops to close to the outside temperature.
2. Brooding density in the house: At 1 to 7 days of age, floor brooding uses 20 to 40 ducklings per sq m, and wire-net brooding uses 40 to 60 ducklings per sq m.
3. Timely drinking and feeding: 12 to 24 hours after hatching, provide drinking water and feed in a timely manner. The drinkers should be sufficient and evenly distributed, and if necessary, manually train the ducklings to drink. 1 to 2 hours after the ducklings drink water, use a complete-price high-quality duckling feed (for 1 to 3 days of age, chick feed can be used instead), soften it with water, and evenly scatter it on feed trays or plastic sheeting to induce them to eat. After all can forage normally, switch to feed troughs for free feeding.
4. Lighting: Ducklings eat little, have strong digestive ability, grow fast, and feed continuously day and night, so the brooding house should have sufficient lighting, and electric lights should also be on at night so they can feed 24 hours a day.
5. Pay attention to ventilation: The brooding house should be well ventilated to prevent excessively high concentrations of ammonia and carbon dioxide in the house, which can induce disease and cause poisoning.
Do a good job in the prevention and treatment of duck diseases
During the meat duck rearing process, prevention must be done well for infectious diseases such as duck viral hepatitis, infectious serositis, influenza, colibacillosis, fowl cholera, and avian influenza. For breeder ducks that have not received booster immunization with duck viral hepatitis and avian influenza vaccines, their offspring ducklings should be injected with anti-viral hepatitis yolk liquid after entering the brooding house, and then injected with avian influenza vaccine after brooding is finished. Other diseases can be prevented and treated with antibiotics. Pay attention to the daily cleaning and sanitation work of the brooding house, remove duck manure every day, prevent ammonia and carbon dioxide poisoning, and do a good job in disinfecting the house. After the meat ducks are sold, the rearing site can be disinfected alternately with quicklime and Xiaoteling, and only after an interval of 7 to 15 days can the second batch of meat ducks be raised. This can better control the occurrence of diseases and improve the survival rate and economic benefits of meat ducks.