Long before coming to live on a rural property, one of our most favourite foods to order on a restaurant menu is duck. Roasted, Confit, Patè, Braised, Shredded, Soup and Stock… the list of great recipes is endlessly motivating when it comes to raising ones own ducks, which in itself is no small task.
The fact is that ducks are messy and muddy animals to care for. Ducks use a lot of water and so inevitably even with added straw, grasses and green organic materials they always manage to get their run back into a quagmire before long. When this happens we either dig out the soupy manure and mix it with sawdust as part of a composting process or add more dry materials regularly to their runs. You have to be willing to really get involved in caring for these birds to keep them happy and in return they will supply endless very rich duck eggs as well as having 8-10 ducklings at a time as they are very dedicated mums and tend to successfully hatch 95% of the eggs they sit on.
Of course some of the credit has to go to the Drake who helped to fertilise the eggs. As they live outdoors both in their run and when foraging around the farm free ranging they get lots of sunshine and an abundant amount of green leafy plants and grasses to eat. There are also a
few wet spots around the farm that the ducks seem to always gravitate to as part of their daily routine searching for insects to eat.
Individually, baby ducks are called ducklings, adult males are called drakes and adult females are called hens. A group of ducks can be called a flock, brace, raft, team or paddling. A group of ducks is referred to as a flock while they are in flight. They are more often referred to as a raft, team or paddling while the group is on water.
As the ducks are such prolific breeders every year successfully raising about 30 ducklings. We have at times needed to do some major reduction of the flock which involves a big day of culling, plucking, eviscerating and final preparation for the kitchen. The other result of a day like this is the making of duck liver patè, duck stock and the collection of the prized bright yellow duck fat deposited thickly under the skin for cooking later. Its a major job but well worth it. One of the tips we can share is that we seek to always breed white ducks as it is easier for plucking feathers and leaving a clean looking skin for cooking.
Currently we have eight hens and one drake. Three of the hens are currently sitting on eggs so we have no doubt that there will soon be a whole lot of ducklings running around.
All the bird watering systems are automatically controlled from the pressurised water lines that run through to each enclosure with small ‘beak operated’ valves that fill little cups each time they are pressed down. It wasn’t always set up like this however and we used to hand water the birds. Over time our goal has been to always look for smart ways to automate processes or utilise an easier low energy strategy to accomplish different tasks.