Mobile duck farm on a Tangail beel earns over Tk 1 lakh a month, farmer says

Aminur, a returned migrant worker from Kamarnaoga village in Delduar, Tangail, runs a mobile duck farm on the Gachpara Kamarnaoga beel in Fazilhati union. Jagonews24 reported on 6 March 2020 that about a year earlier he had started it with 1,000 Jinding and Khaki Campbell ducklings bought for Tk 35,000. Jagonews24 names him Aminur Rahman; a Bangla Tribune report of 22 February 2020 names him Aminur Islam.

According to Jagonews24, after three to four months of rearing the farm began producing 300 to 350 eggs a day, about 350 a day for the past five months. Wholesalers bought them at the farm for Tk 1,100 per hundred (Tk 44 a hali, or four eggs). On that basis the report put daily sales at about Tk 3,800 and his monthly income at about Tk 1.15 lakh.

By Aminur's own account, the farm had sold Tk 5 lakh of eggs over the previous four to five months against Tk 2 lakh in costs. He counted the ducks themselves, about Tk 4 lakh at Tk 400 each, as further profit, and on that reckoning said he earned more than a lakh a month. Two weeks earlier he told Bangla Tribune he earned about Tk 1.2 lakh a month on average and had sold some Tk 6 lakh of eggs in five months; that report said about 850 of the original 1,000 ducks remained. These figures are the farmer's own and were not independently verified.

Both breeds on the farm are known as layers. The Khaki Campbell was developed in England in the late nineteenth century and lays, on average, about 300 eggs a year. The Jinding is an indigenous Chinese egg-laying duck; a 2017 study in BMC Genomics notes that most Jinding ducks lay blue-green shelled eggs and a minority lay white ones.

A beel is a lake-like wetland of still water on the floodplains of Bangladesh: it swells in the monsoon, and in the dry season drains to shallow pools and rich soil farmed for rice. In early March 2020 the Kamarnaoga beel had almost entirely dried into cropland, and Boro rice was due to be planted within days.

Aminur guards the flock from a lean-to hut on a raised plot beside the beel, where he also sleeps, and calls the ducks in at feeding time. The farm moves with the water: from his in-laws' home to his own and then to the beel. Jagonews24 reported that a lack of water had forced three moves in nine months, and that he was considering moving next to Singharagi in neighbouring Elasin union, near the Dhaleshwari river.

He said open water kept feed costs down; the ducks get crushed wheat, rice bran and paddy, with no bought feed. With the water receding, they had to be kept at home for much of the time, which raised costs.

Aminur said that 10 to 12 years earlier, as a wheat trader, he bought one duck a day from his profits until he had 165. Ducks kept his household and paid for his move abroad, to Saudi Arabia and then Singapore. Believing ducks would pay better, he came home and started the farm. He said he planned to bring 3,000 ducklings to the farm that year.

Both reports mention training of 17 and then 21 days under the upazila livestock office, so basic treatment is now given on the farm; in Bangla Tribune it was Aminur's wife, who works on the farm, who described it. Aminur said farmers would benefit if the livestock department visited farms regularly and supplied free vaccines and advice.

Dr Mohammad Ali, veterinary surgeon at the Delduar upazila livestock office, called the farm a good initiative. He said the ducks must be given the routine vaccines and the duck cholera vaccine on schedule to stay healthy, and that vaccines, treatment and advice were provided at government-set prices.

The Merck Veterinary Manual describes fowl cholera, called duck cholera in ducks, as a contagious bacterial disease caused by Pasteurella multocida, to which waterfowl are more susceptible than chickens; many sudden deaths are often the first sign, and good management and biosecurity are the basis of prevention. Farmers should ask the upazila livestock officer about vaccination schedules and treatment.

Photo: Md Rafeur Rahaman / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, The Agro News, Bangla Tribune, Merck Veterinary Manual, BMC Genomics, Wikipedia