What duck raising can do

What ducks raising can do

By: Fred F. Triunfante

If you have a good size lot near metro manila or in the province specially near the centers of population, forget about landing a job in a city. Generate your own income. Engage in duck raising.

Felipe Pantig, who used to be a chick sexor at the Magnolia poultry farms, did it when he felt that there was more to duck raising than being paid a measly sum as an employee.

Two years, ago he started raising 600 heads of crossbred Pekin native ducks in his 700 square meters lot in barangay Buenavista , Sta. Maria, Bulacan. Now he gets an average of 400 eggs daily which are sold either fresh or as salted eggs (itlog na maalat). On the side he is a contract buyer of Magnolia’s infertile eggs which are sold as “penoys.”

Duck raising requires meticulous management, Pantig says, as do other anima raising projects. Ducks are almost resistant to the usual diseases that would easily affect other animals. With clean surroundings and regular feeding, a duck raiser is almost assured of a good profit.  When the eggs are salted, the profits is even bigger. This is because salting egg is a very easy process. The eggs are cleaned, then buried in the fine mud mixed with salt for about 14 days after which they are again cleaned boiled and then given the violet  coating to differentiate them, Pantig says, from the fresh or plain boiled duck eggs. He does not have to worry about marketing since buyers regularly come to his farm to buy eggs.

Pantig is a graduate of animal husbandry from the Araneta University. With the scarcity of jobs, he decided to go on his own, initially putting up a small duck raising project, He gradually expanded the project to a small poultry farm.  “This source of livelihood is more or less stable and better than scouting for a job from one office to another,” he said candidly.

Source:  ang bayanihan,  1984