The government is targeting a two-fold increase in the duck meat and egg production in the country through the construction of 13 new duck breeding farms.
So far duck breeding and egg-hatching has remained a public venture with only six large-scale farms under the Department of Livestock Services (DLS), and the addition to the number of farms will raise the production capacity to about 45 lakh ducklings and 130 lakh eggs every year, said officials.
Besides the establishment of the farms under its newly-launched Tk 177 crore project, titled ‘Establishment of Regional Duck Breeding Farm and Hatchery (ERDBFH-Third Phase)’, the DLS is also targeting to train up 500 farmers centering each new farms with an aim to motivate them to adopt modern methods of duck rearing.
The successful implementation of the project will mean a two-fold increase in the number of duck by the next five years, from about 4.41 core to 8 crore, ERDBFH-Third Phase project director Sardar Abul Basher told UNB.
Although the duck rearing had a far greater potential compared to the poultry sector, the later was able to get a major boost due to mostly private sector initiatives, he said.
At present, there are about 35,000 privately owned poultries in the country, whereas the number of duck farms in the country is negligible and not being accounted for, he said.
The per capita number of chicken and ducks in the country are 1.47 and 0.27 respectively. While the per capita number of chicken has greatly increased over the last decade, the per capital availability of ducks were static since 2002, according to DLS.
“The project is a reflection of government’s attempt to move out of the status quo in duckery of the country,” said Sarder, adding that the chicken and ducks of the country produced about 7,303 million eggs in the last fiscal against the demand for 15,392 million.
“One-third of the country is inundated for some time in a year. It’s an ideal condition for the expansion of duckery,” noted Sardar.
“Actually, a large portion of the rural households rears ducks in scavenging condition. There’s a possibility that some of the households will scale up the duck rearing if they can easily avail themselves of healthy ducklings in good numbers at a time. But that’s the facility the country is lagging behind -– high capacity hatchery,” said Sardar.
Sardar’s point was echoed by Nasir Hawladar, a small farmer of Kotwali thana in Barisal. Nasir along with his neighbour Shahjahan Gazi and Shahin of Bauphal upazila in Patuakhali have been in the duck rearing business for the last 10 years.
“Every year, we keep a flock of 1000-1200 ducks. We buy the ducklings from a private hatchery in Mymensingh. It costs us about Tk 250 for a duckling two and a half months old,” said Nasir when the UNB correspondent interviewed him at Mominpur Char in Patuakhali.
“There’s no hatchery anywhere in Barisal or Patuakhali that can provide so many ducklings at a time,” he said.
He noted that at least two partners of the business have to leave their respective homes by rotation for a certain period in a year to take the duck flock to several char areas for the feeding.
“We let the ducks to scavenge in char areas where the lands are cultivated once in a year. These chars are open source of food for the ducks. Mominpur Char is adjacent to the village of our partner Shahin. So the local people here are allowing us to take the flocks out to the char every morning,” he said.
“We take back the flock to Shahin’s village every evening. We feed the flock with about half maund paddy before nesting it in the enclosure at Shahin’s household,” he said.
He said the flock is now laying 40-50 eggs in a day, but it will lay at least a thousand in a day for about six months. “The main earning from the duck flock is the selling of the eggs. We’re now selling the eggs at the rate of Tk 900 per hundred eggs,” he said.
Source: UNB Connect
