Selection of elimination time for laying ducks

Some duck farmers in rural areas raise egg ducks for three or four years, and some even raise them until they die of natural aging. Duck farmers know that the laying rate of old ducks is low, but they are still reluctant to be eliminated. Do you not know that long-term old-age egg ducks not only consume about 150 grams of feed every day, but also lay few or no eggs, reducing the economic benefits of the whole flock of ducks?

So, how long does it take to raise egg-laying ducks? According to the best laying age of ducks, from shell to 120 days old, the egg laying rate in the first laying year is the highest, and the annual egg weight of captive ducks can reach 20 kg. It will generally drop by 5 per cent by the second laying year and even more by the third laying year.

Old ducks have poor mobility, difficult grazing and foraging, weak adaptability to climate change, high feed consumption and low utilization rate. According to many duck farmers, when they also produce 1 kilogram of eggs, old ducks consume about 20% more feed than new ducks. According to the characteristics of high egg production rate of ducks in the first laying year, the feeding and management at this stage should be strengthened to make the whole duck flock give full play to its production potential in the best production period. After the first production year, it is necessary to selectively eliminate low-yield ducks and retain high-yield ducks according to the egg production of ducks.

The most reliable way to eliminate low-yield old ducks is to touch the eggs continuously for those ducks that have been initially identified as low-yield ducks, that is, to touch the cloacal tract of egg ducks with their fingers to see if there are any eggs. For example, if you touch 10 of the 100 ducks that do not lay eggs, you can isolate them and touch them again on the second or third day. If you touch them three or four times without laying eggs, you can rest assured that they will be eliminated. However, for the new ducks cultivated in the spring of that year, even if the laying rate is low, they should not be eliminated, because they laid eggs for only two months because of the natural environment at that time. If the management is strengthened in the coming year, the egg production rate can be greatly increased, and it is still useful.

When the egg duck reaches 500 Mel 600 days old, it is necessary to judge whether it is necessary to keep the old duck according to the price of duck eggs and feed on the market. If the sales income of duck eggs is greater than the cost of raising old ducks, the whole flock of ducks can still be reared; otherwise, it shows that these ducks are no longer profitable and all old ducks should be eliminated.