Influence of supplementary feeding on the performance of ducks under traditional management

Under traditional management, the influence of supplementary feeding on performance of ducks was studied. The six supplement dietary treatments were control (no feed supplementation), broken rice (BR), protein concentrate (PC), BR+PCx(1.1), BR+Snails (Sn) and BR+PC+Sn. All the supplement dietary treatments were fed 120 g daily initially on a common traditional diet for 7 days and thereafter on experimental diets from 8th to 35th d of the trial. Birds on the diets with snails were fed daily with fresh small snails at 50g bird in addition to the supplement feed. On each dietary treatment, 4 replicate groups of local duck (about 300/group) during lean season were maintained by duck farmers (one group/farmer). All the ducks were allowed for wading during daytime. Supplement feeding of BR or PC significantly (P<0.05) improved egg production than in control. Combined energy + protein diets (BR+PC, BR+ PC+Sn) significantly (P<0.05) increased egg production, feed/dozen eggs and egg weight, supplementation of minerals (PC and/or Sn) along with broken rice significantly (P<0.05) improved egg shell thickness. Body weight, livability and other egg quality parameters were not affected by dietary treatments. Supplement feeding increased profits by about 13% on BR and 39 to 58% on combined energy + protein diets (BR+PC, BR+Sn, BR+PC+Sn) over control. It is concluded that performance of ducks and economics of production under traditional management can be improved by supplementation of balanced feed.