We Often Eat Duck but Never See Ducks Mating - Here's Why

The duck meat we eat most often comes from the "native crossbred duck," but unlike native chickens, native crossbred ducks cannot mate on their own. Production must rely on artificial insemination using the parent breed, the "improved duck." Currently, duck farmers who raise improved ducks must inseminate the females once every 3 to 4 days, which is time-consuming and costly. A new variety, the "Wujie White Duck," selected over 10 years by the Yilan Branch of the Council of Agriculture's Livestock Research Institute, extends the insemination interval to 6 days, about twice as long as before. At today's cost of 2 yuan per dose, the monthly insemination cost per duck would drop from 20 yuan to 10 yuan. Farmers all exclaim, "This really is a big breakthrough!"

Wujie White Duck Expected to Be Technology-Transferred by Year-End

Liu Xiuzhou said that extending the fertilization interval not only saves farmers money, but because each artificial insemination is a human disturbance for the ducks, it invisibly causes stress in the breeding ducks, which in turn affects egg-laying performance. In the future, using the Wujie White Duck, the number of inseminations per month would drop from 10 to 5, and the stress suffered would also be greatly reduced.

The Wujie White Duck completed its naming registration on April 1 this year. After about half a year of administrative procedures such as valuation and review, it is expected to be technology-transferred or promoted to farmers through industry-academia cooperation by the end of the year.

Common Duck Breeds in Taiwan, China