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In the wake of the general passion for chickens and quails, other birds bred by humans on private farmsteads remain behind the scenes. People still remember little about turkeys. In general, this state of affairs is justified. Chicken and turkey meat can be seen on store shelves, and quail is fashionable.
But besides these three types, there are also guinea fowl, pheasants and peacocks, as well as waterfowl - ducks and geese.
In total, there are more than 110 species of ducks, and 30 of them live in Russia. The domestic duck is descended from the wild mallard duck.
Mallard ducks were kept in ancient Greece, but they have not yet been fully domesticated. Evidence that the domestication of the duck has not been completed is that the duck easily runs wild.
Unlike chickens, a duck that has flown away does not strive to return home, although they can be kept nearby by providing food. When the food runs out, the duck will go on a journey in search of a new feeder.
The domestic duck, fattened by a quiet life and easily accessible food, does not give the impression of being a good flyer, but this is not so. Contrary to the belief that a duck needs a run on the water to take off, it is quite capable of soaring like a candle into the sky right from its spot. It’s just that the duck is often too lazy to do this. The behavior of domestic ducks is very similar to the behavior of city pigeons: “I can fly, but I don’t want to, and I’m not afraid of people either.”
The wild mallard gave rise to almost all breeds of domestic ducks. But the differences between the breeds are small, especially compared to chickens.
It is better for a beginner to start breeding ducks with “noble ducks”, another name is “Peking duck”, which are as close as possible to the wild type, or with indo ducks, aka Muscovy ducks.
Domestic mallards (Peking ducks)
The photo shows wild mallards. But domestic ones often do not differ at all in color. So if a domestic mallard joins a flock of wild ducks, it will be impossible to find it there. Unless the escaped duck is piebald or white.
Domestic mongrel ducks, although these ducks are often called Peking ducks, ducks can be piebald or white, since humans retain a color that is very undesirable in natural conditions.
The maximum weight of a wild mallard is 2 kg. The “noblewoman” has the same weight and dimensions.
The advantage of outbred mallards is that they have a well-developed brooding instinct. From 6 ducks and 2 drakes without human intervention per season you can get 150 heads of young animals weighing 1 - 1.5 kg in 2 months.
But incubating duck eggs is a troublesome task not only for beginners. And not even every incubator is suitable for this task. You will have to buy an automatic one with the ability to regulate temperature and humidity.
Muscovy duck
Its other name is Indian duck. And this is not a hybrid of a turkey and a duck, but also a wild species native to South America. Breeding at home influenced the variability of colors and sizes, but left intact their ability to breed offspring without the help of people.
A domesticated duck weighs twice as much as a wild duck. Inducks have well-developed sexual dimorphism, the weight of the male is twice that of the female. If the weight of wild individuals is 1.3 and 3 kg, then for domestic ones the corresponding sizes are 1.8 - 3 and 4 - 6 kg.
The preservation of wild habits in Indian ducks is also manifested in the behavior of the drake. A two-year-old drake begins to chase strangers from its territory, surpassing the gander in aggressiveness. And it plucks no worse than a goose.
In terms of meat quality, the Muscovy duck is inferior to the Peking (mallard) duck. And the advantage of musk ducks is that they do not scream like Pekin ducks.
Breeding ducks at home for beginners is best practiced on these two species.
Mulard
This hybrid may not be for beginners, but if a beginner gets mallards and turkey ducks without separating them, then the mulard may turn out on its own.
Mulard is a product of crossing a mallard with an indo-duck. Typically, female mallards and musk drakes are crossed. The result is larger than the parent forms and gains weight well.
On the Internet you can find a statement that mulard is suitable for breeding at home. Don't believe it!
Therefore, mulards are only suitable for meat. You can also get food eggs from ducks. Don't even try to breed.
Although there may be confusion in the names.In Russian, “mulard” is an interspecific hybrid between a mallard and an Indian duck, and in English, mallard sounds like mallard.
Keeping ducks at home in a private yard
It must be said right away that ducks definitely cannot be raised in an apartment. Although ducks can live perfectly well without water, they love to splash water from drinking bowls. If they do not have the opportunity to fully get into the water, then at least get their head and neck wet.
Ideal conditions for keeping ducks would be free access of the flock to the pond. But in this case, there is a high probability that in the fall the ducks will fly to warmer climes. Therefore, it is better to use the experience of the ancient Greeks and keep ducks in an aviary with a net stretched over the top.
Moreover, if natural breeding of ducks is planned, the aviary should be made as spacious as possible and provide ducks with shelter for nesting. These can be ordinary vegetable boxes. The main requirement is a height sufficient for free entry of the duck.
Only ducks know what signs they use to choose their shelter. So just put more boxes than you have ducks.
According to the results. The best option for ducks would be a fenced enclosure with a pond (it is necessary to provide a drain for water spilled by ducks), nest boxes and a closed top. If it is not possible to organize a pond for the ducks, you need to choose drinking bowls where the ducks cannot dive, but will always have free access to water. They drink a lot.
With the top of the enclosure open, the ducks' wings will have to be trimmed twice a year after molting.
As for winter maintenance. Mallards winter well in open waters, even in the Leningrad region. There would be food. But the water temperature in the reservoir is above zero, otherwise there would be ice.Therefore, in the absence of open water, ducks should not be left to winter in the snow. And in general, indo-ducks should not be kept outside around the clock at sub-zero temperatures. Therefore, for the winter, ducks need a warm and dry shelter (they will wet it themselves). A barn with above-zero temperatures is quite suitable.
Duck bedding
Ducks do not sit on a roost; they will have to be kept on the floor. In connection with floor maintenance, the issue of bedding arises. Ducks will have to change their bedding much more often than chickens.
The problem here is that in chickens, like all land birds with normal intestinal function, the droppings are covered with a thin film that prevents them from spreading everywhere. When it gets into sawdust, such a pile quickly gives up moisture and dries out.
Waterfowl do not have such an adaptation. In nature, they defecate in water and do not need thick droppings. So the duck shits a lot and loosely.
As a result, the litter quickly gets wet, mixes with diarrhea and, against the backdrop of high humidity, begins to stink.
How to keep ducks is approximately clear. Now I need to figure out how to feed them.
Feeding the ducks
In nature, the duck collects duckweed and aquatic inhabitants from the surface of the reservoir. By the way, this is precisely the reason that ducks are often infected with leptospira, which are well preserved in a humid environment.
At home, ducks eat the same food as chickens. Pieces of fruit can be given as supplements. They love grapes and, oddly enough, pomegranates. They eat grass poorly because, unlike geese, their beaks are not adapted to cutting grass. But finely chopped grass or young small sprouts will be eaten with pleasure.They can pluck leaves from bushes and trees where they can reach. If you wish, you can collect duckweed from the nearest body of water.
Ducks also love small snails. Apparently, snails replace the animal food that they naturally catch in the water. And at the same time, snail shells replenish calcium reserves.
Adult ducks are fed 2 times a day. Compound feed, like chickens, is given at the rate of 100 - 120 g per day per head. In order not to breed rats and mice in the enclosure, you need to monitor the consumption of food. It's normal for the ducks to eat everything in 15 minutes.
Feed rates are regulated depending on how much food is consumed. With the beginning of the egg-laying period, it is necessary to give more food, if possible, since, after sitting on eggs, ducks go to feed every other time. Therefore, during the incubation period, feed consumption will decrease. Ducks will begin to consume subcutaneous fat.
Young ducks are kept separately and their food must be constantly available.
Duck breeding
How to breed ducks: under a hen or in an incubator is up to the owner to decide. When breeding under a duck, a certain number of eggs are lost, since the duck lays eggs for almost a month, then sits on the eggs for a month.
If the hatched ducklings are not immediately picked up, the duck will spend another month raising them. Moreover, even in nature, ducks manage to raise a couple of broods (the second as insurance in case of the death of the first). If the ducklings are taken away, the duck will begin laying eggs again after a few days, having managed to make 3–4 clutches of eggs during the season.
When hatched in an incubator, the duck will continue to lay eggs without wasting time hatching the ducklings.This way you can get more young animals during the season, but you will have to tinker with preparing and placing eggs in the incubator, pay electricity bills and then properly disinfect the inside of the incubator so as not to contaminate the next batch of eggs with anything.
However, you can consider all three ways: in the incubator, under the duck and mixed.
Breeding ducklings in an incubator
First of all, you will have to purchase a high-quality incubator. A duck egg is heavier, although almost the same in size as a chicken egg. A duck egg has a stronger shell and a thick, elastic membrane under the shell. A duck egg needs higher air humidity than a chicken egg. Duck eggs need to be turned 4 to 6 times a day. If you remember the higher weight of a duck egg (80 g, and indo-ducks have more), you will have to think about whether the incubator motor can cope with such a mass of eggs. The number of duck eggs will be the same as chicken eggs.
At the same time, it is also necessary to maintain a certain temperature regime, since duck eggs cannot be heated all month at the same temperatures. Chicken and quail eggs in primitive “basins with fans” made from a foam box and a heating fan develop successfully. Duck, goose and turkey eggs die.
Thus, you will need an incubator with a sufficiently powerful device for turning the eggs; a timer that will regulate the intervals for turning the eggs; the ability to set different temperature conditions; possibility of adjusting air humidity.
Such incubators already exist today. But they may not be at hand and you will have to buy them. Yes, and they are quite expensive. But you can go broke just once.
Selection and placement of duck eggs in the incubator
According to all instructions for incubating duck eggs, eggs no older than five days of age are placed in the incubator. And only turkey eggs can be up to 10 days old. It is even better if the Muscovy duck eggs are 10 days old. Before being placed in the incubator, eggs are stored at a temperature of 8 - 13 ° C, turning them 3 - 4 times a day.
Medium-sized, clean eggs without visible shell defects are laid for incubation.
There is no need to wash off this greenish coating. This is the protective shell of the egg, consisting of fat. When breeding indo-ducks, it is recommended to carefully wipe off this plaque with a sponge (do not wash it with a sponge, only with a steel wool) two weeks after the start of incubation or incubation. This film does not allow air to reach the duckling and the fetus suffocates in the egg.
But it is necessary to remove the film from the eggs of indo-ducks during incubation and it is better to do this at the beginning so as not to overcool the eggs later. During natural incubation, the Indian duck gradually erases this film from the egg by itself, lowering itself onto the eggs with a wet body. The ducklings in the egg definitely do not suffocate under the indo-duck.
Before placing the eggs in the incubator, you need to disinfect them with a weak solution of potassium permanganate and carefully wipe off any dirt that has fallen on the eggs from wet duck feet. It will just get wet in potassium permanganate.
You can use the table below as instructions for setting the regime for each week of incubation of duck eggs.
The incubation mode for Muscovy duck eggs is different.
After the pecks appear, there is no need to rush the ducklings.It happens that a duckling pecks at the shell and sits in the egg for up to 2 days, since ducklings are designed by nature to hatch at the same time, but one could be delayed in development and he needs to let the duck know that he is alive and there is no need to leave with the brood yet , leaving the duckling that did not have time to hatch to the mercy of fate.
At the same time, there is another side to the coin. If the duckling is really weak, it will die in the egg if it is not helped. Another question is whether it is necessary to help the weak duckling. Moreover, if we start helping, we must take into account that the incubator in this case is dangerous.
You can open a hole for the duckling and even make it big. But while the duckling is gaining strength to get out of the egg, the inner films of the egg will dry to its body. The incubator dries out the opened eggs very much.
There is another danger. By cracking the egg of a duckling that is not ready to hatch, you can damage the inner membrane, with blood vessels still filled with blood.
When the duckling is ready to emerge from the egg, all the blood and yolk go into its body. After the duckling emerges, a film with deflated blood vessels thinner than a human hair and meconium remains on the inside of the egg.
In a duckling that is not ready to hatch, the external blood vessels on the egg membrane can be more than a millimeter in diameter.
Therefore, we just wait until the duckling, who has gained strength and gone mad with boredom, opens the egg himself, like a tin can.
Raising ducklings under a mother duck
A huge advantage of raising ducklings under a duck is the complete absence of hassle with eggs. Provide the ducks with shelter and, at the beginning of the egg-laying period, periodically throw them a couple of armfuls of straw. Ducks will build nests from it themselves.
The duck begins to lay eggs directly on the bare ground.While the duck lays one egg per day, she manages to collect dry vegetation for the nest. Sometimes, with an excess of building material, the nest even rises above the ground, like those of its wild counterparts.
It is from the beginning of oviposition that miracles begin. Before sitting on eggs, a duck will lay at least 15 eggs. Usually about 20 eggs. And some specimens can lay 28 eggs. In fact, a duck can hatch no more than 15 eggs. Occasionally she gets 17 ducklings. Body size simply does not allow hatching more eggs. The remaining eggs are an adjustment for infertility of the egg and predators.
But you shouldn’t count on 15 ducklings from each duck either. A good hen will hatch 15 ducklings, a foolish mother will bring 7-8 ducklings, since she, having become hysterical from a passing person, perforated the rest of the eggs with her claws or threw them too far from the nest and the embryo died. Therefore, when estimating the number of unborn ducklings (and you have to estimate to design brooders for them), you need to count on 10 ducklings per duck on average.
However, even if the ducks laid only 10 eggs, this would no longer fit with the incubator shelf life of 5 days, and even at a temperature of about 10°C. How ducks, when laying eggs for such a long time, manage to hatch good broods of ducklings is a mystery of nature.
In cold rains at an air temperature of 10–15°, the eggs die.
There is also no need to worry about selecting unfertilized eggs and eggs with dead embryos.After about a week of incubation, the duck begins to periodically throw eggs out of the nest. No, she is not stupid, and there is no need to return these eggs to the nest. Ducks can identify dead eggs and get rid of them, even if they have just begun to spoil. So it turns out that by the end of incubation, about 15 eggs remain under the duck and almost all of them hatch into ducklings. Although it happens that there are a couple of dead eggs that the duck either did not notice, or they did not bother her, or the embryo died quite recently.
From the third week of incubation, the duck sits very tightly on the eggs, hissing and starting a fight if you reach out to her. Not a goose, of course, but it leaves bruises. A duck is no match for a human and can be driven away from the nest. But it's not necessary.
When hatching begins, the duck may go for a snack if the ducklings have just pecked at the shell. Later, she does not leave the nest until the last duckling appears. But ducklings are quite capable of running away and dying.
If there are cats or other animals in the yard, it is better to select the hatched ducklings and place them in brooders (or just boxes with a lamp) on the bedding, since while the duck is reaching the last chick, the first ones can already be killed by other animals. In addition, having lost a brood, a few days later the duck will begin the next egg-laying cycle.
If you leave the ducklings with the duck, she will first have to be switched to starter feed for young animals. But it is not a fact that this feed will go to the ducklings for whom it was developed. Therefore, it is still better to raise ducklings separately.
Mixed method
If the ducks started laying eggs too early and you are sure that the eggs will die from the cold, you can hatch the first batch of ducklings in an incubator. You can also collect the first eggs that ducks begin to lay.If the house has a household incubator rather than an industrial one, it will quickly be filled with the first eggs. And the ducks will simply sit on slightly fewer eggs.
Raising ducklings
The ducklings are placed in a suitable container or factory-made brooder. A 40-watt electric lamp with adjustable height will be quite enough to replace maternal warmth for ducklings. Later the lamp can be replaced with a less powerful one.
This is easy to determine: they are gathered under the lamp, pushing and trying to get closer to it - the ducklings are cold; They ran to the farthest corner they could find - it was too hot.
The ducklings need to be given a bowl of food and water. There is no need to teach them to peck food. A day after hatching, they will begin to eat themselves.
At the same time, dry feed does not turn sour, does not attract pathogenic bacteria and does not cause intestinal upset in ducklings.
Ducklings will find water faster than food. In the case of a drinking bowl, care must be taken so that the ducklings cannot climb into it or so that they can get out of it. Since even though ducks are waterfowl, constant stay in the water without food will have a bad effect on the duckling. However, if you put a stone in a bowl, this will be enough for the duckling to get out of the water.
The weight in the bowl has another purpose: it will prevent the ducklings from knocking over the bowl and pouring all the water onto the bedding. Living on wet bedding is also bad for ducklings. They should be able to shake off the water and dry.
It is not recommended to keep ducklings in brooders for a long time.For normal development, ducklings must be able to move. Grown-up ducklings need to be moved to a larger room. Ducklings that have already acquired feathers can be released to the main herd.
At first, adult ducks will beat the young ones. This is dangerous if there are fewer young people than adults, and not very scary. if for every adult there are ten young ones. But to smooth out the rough edges at the moment of acquaintance, you can, after releasing the ducklings, chase all the ducks together around the yard for a couple of circles. While they are running, they manage to forget who is new and who is old, and further conflicts are rare and not dangerous.
And a question that will probably interest any beginner today. Is duck farming profitable as a business?
Business on ducks
Quite a difficult question. Ducks, especially if you give them the opportunity to raise ducklings themselves, are definitely beneficial for the family. As already mentioned, from 6 ducks per season you can get 150 heads of young animals for meat. This is approximately 1 duck carcass every two days on the dinner table. After six months, hearing the word “duck” your eye may begin to twitch. Ducks, of course, are tasty and at the same time quite expensive if you buy them, but everything gets boring.
When raising ducks on an industrial scale, that is, with a population of at least a hundred females, in addition to incubators (and here you can’t get by with boxes), you will have to think through a system for isolating ducks from the environment.
Those who advise on the Internet to keep ducks on a mesh floor or on deep, permanent bedding have obviously never seen or kept ducks. Therefore, they do not know how liquid the ducks’ droppings are, which will stain all the grates, and when walking, will be absorbed into the ground and poison the groundwater flowing into the well. Also, the advisers have no idea how the litter is compacted if it is not turned over every day. And deep litter cannot be stirred up. Bacteria and mold begin to multiply in it very quickly, which, when agitated, rise into the air and infect the birds.
In industrial complexes in the USA, ducks are kept in waterproofed bowls on bedding, daily adding fresh water to protect the duck feet from the burns that fresh droppings can cause. This bedding is changed using bulldozers and excavators after the next batch of ducks is sent for slaughter.
Characteristics of Peking and Muscovy ducks. Video
To summarize, we can say that breeding and raising ducks is even easier than breeding and raising chickens, since many breeds of chickens have already lost the brooding instinct and their eggs need to be incubated. With ducks, the simplest option is to let them breed on their own.
I have a problem, two ducks sat in one nest, and one has been sitting for about 15 days, and the second laid eggs on her and also sat next to her, what about the offspring, and how they will divide the babies, and who will sit out the eggs.
Hello! Most likely, they will bring out the first batch and consider their duty accomplished. I would take the hatching ducklings. Then there is a chance that they will continue to incubate later ones. And they are unlikely to share anyone. In birds, everything depends on imprinting. Whoever the duckling imitated was the mother. Even if it's a cat. So the ducklings themselves will share.
Or the second option: they will hatch the first batch and the rest of the eggs into the incubator. I just raised two ducklings this way. Either someone also threw eggs at the duck, or they just lay aside for some time. But I used an ovoscope to reveal normal, approximately two-week development of embryos. I put them in the incubator and they hatched.