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A derivative of the Peking breed, the Bashkir duck was obtained as a result of an attempt to improve the Peking breed. When colored individuals began to appear in the Pekin herd, they were separated and started breeding within themselves. The result was a new breed with pure Peking duck blood - the Bashkir colored duck.
Description of the breed
The characteristics of the Bashkir duck, its advantages and disadvantages are similar to the Peking breed. Drakes weigh 4 kg, ducks from 3 to 3.5 kg. For a meat breed, they have a fairly high egg production, about 120 eggs per year weighing from 80 to 90 g. A really useful acquisition of a Bashkir breed duck is its frost resistance, which is useful in Russian conditions and which Peking ducks do not have.
The body of ducks is tightly built and massive. Capable of supporting 4 kg of drake weight, the paws are powerful, thick-boned, and widely spaced.
The advantages of the breed include:
- resistance to low temperatures;
- high yield of ducklings from hatching eggs;
- fast growth;
- resistance to stress;
- high immunity;
- unpretentiousness to feed and living conditions.
Although you can find claims online that Bashkir duck meat is less fatty than Peking duck, this is not true.According to duck breeders who have tried to breed both breeds, the technical characteristics of both breeds are the same. Except for cold resistance. However, if it were not necessary to withdraw duck breedresistant to Russian cold, there would be no attempt to improve the Peking breed. And such a variety of Peking duck as the Bashkir colored duck simply would not have been born.
The disadvantages of the Bashkir duck include:
- reluctance to sit on eggshells, despite the advertising of sellers;
- voracity;
- obesity, to which both Beijing and Bashkir women are prone, coupled with a tendency to overeat;
- loudness.
All mallards are distinguished by the latter, so there is only “understand and forgive.” Or get an Indian duck.
In this photo there is a blue favorite, not a Bashkir breed of ducks
However, the Blagovarsky factory also bred a favorite of a different color - red. This variety of duck has brick-colored feathers. Otherwise, they do not differ from the blue favorite and are not an old breed of Bashkir ducks either.
The standard color of a real Bashkir duck is piebald. Bashkir ducks can be black and piebald (with a white chest) and piebald based on the khaki color.
In the photo there is a duck of the Bashkir breed of piebald color based on khaki
There are no white Bashkir ducks, and this can also be considered one of their disadvantages, since, according to farmers’ observations, greyish-colored duck carcasses do not sell well. Worse than the carcasses of white Peking ducks. But live ducklings, on the contrary, are in more demand than Peking ducklings. But they take them not for industrial breeding, but for themselves.
In the photo you can clearly see the standard colors of both black ducks and khaki.
The color of the beaks depends on the color of the feather. Khaki-based piebalds have bills the same color as wild mallards: drakes have a green tint, ducks have yellow or brown-yellow. Black white-breasted birds have black bills.
Duck keeping
Although Bashkir ducks are undemanding in terms of living conditions, doing nothing at all to provide them with comfort will also not work. This breed of duck in particular needs a lot of water. For drinking, they must be provided with free access to fresh, clean water. And if possible, arrange a pond for them.
For wintering, ducks are provided with deep bedding on the floor; a bathhouse cannot be placed in the barn, all the water will be on the floor. Drinkers in the barn also need those from which the ducks cannot spill water, i.e. nipple drinkers.
Ducks trample any bedding material very hard, soiling it with liquid droppings on top. The result is a wet bedding on top, covered in droppings, on which ducks trample, and a completely dry bedding material below, since due to strong compaction, moisture cannot penetrate into the lower layers.
A different situation is only possible if there is a bathhouse indoors. Then the ducks will make a swamp there.
Feeders for ducks can be arranged in bunkers, but due to the birds’ tendency to obesity, only a daily portion of concentrates can be placed there.
Breeding Bashkir ducks
Bashkirs do not sit on eggs, as the advertisement claims, so when ducks begin to lay eggs, their eggs are collected for further placement in incubators. By feeding ducks with laying feed, you can speed up the egg laying of ducks, since usually the onset of egg laying depends on the length of daylight hours.The dependence on air temperature is much less.
Therefore, in order for ducks to lay eggs as early as possible, they are transferred to laying hen feed. In this case, even without special lighting in the house, the duck will begin to lay eggs in March. True, it may turn out that she will start laying eggs right on the snow.
To obtain a hatching egg, each drake is assigned 3 to 4 ducks. If the number is higher, many eggs will remain unfertilized.
The physiology of waterfowl is such that the maximum number of fertilized eggs is obtained when a pair mates in water. This happens because ducks have a body that is flattened on the back and belly for better holding on the water and short legs; they do not need long ones for rowing. But because of these features, it is not very convenient for them to mate outside the reservoir.
Duck eggs are surprisingly even in size. They may vary in size from different ducks, but the same bird will produce eggs of the same size.
It is better not to place eggs that are too small in the incubator, and to discard the duck that lays them from breeding. Bashkir duck eggs are incubated in the same way as any other.
At the same time, there is a point that ducklings are often better hatched under brood hens. If there are ducks of another breed that sit well on eggs, future Bashkirs can be introduced to them. It must be taken into account that if a duck sits down, then while hatching the chicks, it practically does not leave the nest. Therefore, it is not recommended to restrict future hens in feed. Even if they become obese, they will lose twice their weight when hatching eggs.
Eggs under brood hens can be checked in the same way as during incubation, using a hand-held tester.At the beginning of incubation, the duck will run away from the nest, cursing the owner in the process. At the end of the term, the hen sits very tightly on the eggs and will fight when trying to take the egg.
Leaving the nest at the beginning of incubation to feed, the brood duck always tries to cover the eggs. Sometimes she does this only for formality, as in the photo, and sometimes she covers it so that the eggs are not visible under a layer of grass and fluff.
Unfortunately, it is not advisable to place duck eggs under chicken or turkey. Duck eggs require 28 days to incubate, while chicken eggs require 21. A hen can abandon a nest with hatched ducklings. A turkey has the same brooding period as a duck, but the shells of duck eggs cannot withstand the claws and weight of a turkey.
How many eggs to place under the hen must be decided depending on the size of the future “mother”. The bird can hatch 10-17 of its own eggs. If the eggs are large and the foster mother is small, add about 10 eggs.
Hatched ducklings are raised in the same way as other young ducks. If it is possible to give them plankton from reservoirs, you can feed them with this food. But it must be fresh. Since these conditions are very difficult to meet, the ducklings are fed with regular starter feed.
Reviews from Bashkir duck owners
Conclusion
At the same time, the buyer will never be told which line of Bashkir duck he is taking.
The Bashkir breed is superior to the Peking breed as a meat breed when kept under Russian conditions. But it requires a properly formulated diet and care when purchasing ducklings or hatching eggs.
