Tales from the duck side

MANILA, Philippines - I raise ducks as a hobby and doing so has rewarded me with delicious duck meat and cholesterol-rich eggs. But there are other benefits to duck raising few have taken note of.

Raising ducks is a tension-relieving, relaxing activity. I suggest that everyone, particularly, high-stressed Makati executives trying to make sense out of today’s falling bottomlines raise ducks. It’s easy, fun, and not costly at all.

Ducks do not require expensive housing. You can let them roam around in fenced, but open area. Just make sure that they have a shady place to protect them from too much heat. Feathered animals do not have a high tolerance for heat. They need shade.

They also require a generous supply of water to drink and swim in. Ducks love water and they dive, bath, swim in a pond almost all day. A six-inch deep pond of water is enough.

You can feed them with house left overs, wheat or corn or better still, processed duck feeds. With duck feeds, the ducks grow faster and lay more eggs. Of course, processed duck feeds are a bit pricey. But, hey, they work.

Ducks are tough and do not easily get sick. In my case, mortality is practically zero. I started with 10 ducks and this grew to around 50 in a few months. Then I started giving some as gifts to friends for them to raise and they all enjoyed the experience and the meat, of course.

Beyond easing my hunger and inducing a higher cholesterol count, raising ducks and observing them have given me some funny and at times insightful tidbits on their behavior that sometimes make me compare theirs with their supposedly more civilized human counterparts.

Ducks know who their “boss” is – he is the one who feeds them. Whenever I hew close to their fenced area, the ducks automatically swarm close to me as if asking for more food. When others come near, ducks scamper away. My farm keeper who takes charge of catching ducks destined for the kitchen is a persona non grata to the duckworld. The sight of him makes them run away to safety.

A mother goose is a fierce protector of her offsprings. She would keep her ducklings warm under her wings at night and stay close to them all day long protecting them from other ducks, and predators such as the unwanted cat. The mother goose fights tooth and nail for her ducklings. She fights so fiercely that even cats run away to escape her wrath.

The biggest gander rules the roost. Yes, the biggest and strongest male is the head of the clan and there’s no questioning his authority. The rule in duck raising is one gander (male) for every six goose (females). So in theory, a gander can mate with one goose a day and then rest on a Sunday. But of course he does more. In fact he also does his thing with other partners of smaller males who can only run away once the head of the clan starts chasing another goose. On this aspect, the male duck is even luckier than his human counterpart.

There are “opportunists” in them too. There is this medium-sized gander that I observed to be the opportunist in the group. Since he is smaller than most other males, he finds it difficult to catch a goose on his own. So what he does is follow a bigger gander and when this gander is done mating with a goose, this “opportunist” jumps on the poor goose still lying prone from the previous mating. Once this opportunist duck is done with his thing, he follows another gander and does the same thing all over again. Yes, there are Madoffs everywhere. They exist even in the world of ducks.

Ducklings and chicks blend together. I also raise chicken. There was this particular hen that does not sit on her eggs to incubate them. So I took the eggs and mixed them with the eggs of a goose that was sitting on hers. When the eggs hatched, there was a mix of chicks and ducklings under the protective care of the mother goose who looked after everyone of them. The chicks and ducklings blended well. They drank from the same water source, ate the same feeds and slept under the same warm wings of the mother goose. When the mom goes a-looking for food, the ducklings and chicks follow her in one big group that made my daughter Mariel remark, “Papa, the chicks must be thinking they are ducklings too.”

The parade of ducklings and chicks living and playing together continued for a few weeks until they grew older and bigger and started to realize they were different from each other. Then they all went their separate ways. Just like humans.