Survey of management technologies in duck farms

Abstract

Different regulations control certain parameters of animal production (e.g. stocking density) but for many housing technology elements, there are no regulations set. Our aim was to survey the technology of fifteen different duck raising (N) or duck force-feeding farms (T) or duck raising and force-feeding farms (NT). Basics data on barn, equipment, fodder, drinker, force-feeding technology and mortality rate were recorded. The most common barn construction was the plastic foil walled type except one duck raising farm (N1). Each duck raising farm had a minimum 0.5 ha open-air runner. The interviewed farms admitted from 1 to 4 % mortality rate. Only one farm had less than 1% mortality rate. The frequency of feed-forcing was twice a day, but 25% of the farms did this protocol three times a day. The average period of feed-forcing was 12 days (10-15 days). Further data collection is needed to get enough information about technology on duck farms.