Raising ducks on a pond: housing, feed and care of laying ducks

In April 2025 a staff correspondent of The Agro News set out a simple guide to raising ducks beside a pond or other water body. It advised starting with a small flock and moving to a commercial scale later. Guides from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and India's Central Poultry Development Organisation (CPDO) fill in the details.

Layer breeds are kept for eggs, notably the Khaki Campbell, the Indian Runner and the local deshi duck. According to FAO's TECA guide, the Khaki Campbell was bred in England from the Indian Runner and the Rouen duck; it suits a tropical climate and can lay 250 to 300 eggs a year.

A 2012 BRAC note published by FAO's family poultry network said ducks supplied about 22 to 25 percent of the country's annual egg production, and that government duck breeding stations supplied Khaki Campbell, Jinding and Muscovy ducklings. In the haor wetlands almost every family keeps 5 to 100 ducks.

FAO's guide says a night shelter needs little room: 1 square metre is enough for five to six ducks, or half a square metre per duck if they also use it by day. It must be well ventilated. A shelter built over a pond can have a floor of wooden or bamboo slats with gaps of about 1 centimetre, so droppings fall into the water and fertilise it. On solid floors, straw or husk litter must be kept dry.

Young ducklings can be let onto the water twice a day for at least an hour each time, but kept there too long they may catch cold. FAO notes that incubator-hatched ducklings cannot oil their feathers until about three weeks old. Adult ducks can swim for 8 to 10 hours a day. The CPDO adds that swimming water is not essential, but drinkers must be deep enough for ducks to dip their heads and clean their eyes.

In combined duck and fish culture, the CPDO says, duck droppings feed the fish, at 200 to 300 ducks per hectare. Grown ducks do catch small fish fry, however, so after stocking fry the ducks can be kept confined for about 15 days.

The CPDO guide stresses that ducks should never have feed without water. When feed is given dry, a water pot must sit beside it, because ducklings take food in the mouth and wash it down with water. Home-made duck feed usually includes:

• Paddy and broken rice
• Rice bran
• Crushed wheat and wheat bran
• Crushed snails and mussels (only a little for young ducklings)

The report put the daily ration of improved breeds at 160 to 180 grams. The CPDO says a Khaki Campbell eats about 12.5 kilograms of feed up to 20 weeks of age and then 120 grams a day or more, depending on egg output and the greens available. The daily ration can be split between morning, midday and afternoon.

The report said ducks usually begin laying at 22 to 23 weeks, while the CPDO notes that high-laying strains can start at 16 to 18 weeks. The CPDO says 95 to 98 percent of eggs are laid before 9 in the morning, and FAO says within three hours of sunrise, so ducks let out too early may drop eggs in the water. One nest box for every three to six ducks keeps eggs clean.

Duck eggs are larger than hen's eggs, by about 15 to 20 grams according to the CPDO. A duck that does not lay should be identified and removed from the flock. No drake is needed for table eggs; for hatching, the report advised one drake to seven or eight ducks, while the FAO and CPDO guides give one to six or seven.

Photo: Masum Ibn Musa / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources: The Agro News (Staff Correspondent), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO TECA: Duck keeping in the tropics), Central Poultry Development Organisation (Southern Region), India, FAO INFPD and BRAC (note on duck farming in the haor areas, 2012)