By Dr Md Aynal Haque

RAJSHAHI, Sept 3, 2022 (BSS)- Ashraful Islam has become an icon in his locality in terms of attaining economic emancipation side by side with boosting his level of confidence through duck farming for the last couple of years.

A resident of Buzrukula village in Bagmara Upazila of the district, he has around 1,500 ducks, including around 1,000 egg-laying ones, in his farm at present generating the path of earning around Taka 15 lakh yearly on an average.

He is selling eggs at Taka 10.50 per piece from his farm regularly, saying the demand of duck-egg has enhanced to a greater extent at present. In the wholesale markets, the egg is being sold at Taka 11 to 14 per piece according to size.

"I have launched the venture with 100 cambel species chicks when I was a first year honours student in 2019," said Islam, adding that he's increasing the duck population gradually since then.

"I bring one-day-old duck chicks to rear them for four months till they start giving eggs. Every day I have to spend around Tk 5,000 for their food, medicine and my employee's salary. The upazila livestock office supplies vaccines," he said.

He said he now gets 900 eggs daily on an average throughout the year and makes profit around Tk 1.35 lakh per month.

Currently, a fourth year student in the department of political science in Mohanpur Government Degree College, he has built the ever-biggest farm in the area inspiring many of his co-villagers to follow the potential way.

Rubel Islam, 35, who used to sell his labour earlier, has now become financially solvent through the duck farming contributing to the society in many ways.

A resident of Bakshimoil village under Mohanpur Upazila, he began the venture with around 300 chicks. At present, he sells 300 to 350 eggs a day on an average besides selling ducks in wholesale markets. In this way, he earns a profit of around Taka 20,000 to 25,000 per month on an average.

"I couldn't get the scopes of institutional learning due to poverty that forced me to sale labour on others land," said Rubel Islam, adding the worst situation has overcome at present.

Upazila Livestock Officer Dr Mahbubur Rahman said apart from Ashraful and Rubel many others have found the path of becoming self-reliant through duck farming.

"We are providing training, technical and other consultation services to the farmers in this field," he added.
Ducks need less expensive, simple and non-elaborate housing facilities resulting in very less cost for setting up commercial duck farming businesses. They are very hardy birds and they need less care or management.

They can adapt to almost all types of environmental conditions. The ducks are mostly fed home-made feed in addition to what they are deriving from scavenging facilities.

Most of the farmers provided rice polish, boiled rice and broken rice as supplementary feed ingredients to ducks either singly or in combination.
Prof Dr Jalal Uddin Sarder, Dean of the Animal and Veterinary Science Faculty of Rajshahi University, said duck farming has diversified aspects of eradicating various social problems related to poverty, unemployment and malnutrition in particular.

Duck rearing has been contributing a lot towards mitigating the problems related to livelihoods as women, particularly the housewives, are mostly involved in rearing ducks of indigenous species.

Prof Jalal Sarder opined that duck farming has now been a reliable source of promoting small-scale entrepreneurship in both rural and urban areas in the region as many unemployed people become self-reliant in this field.

Use of natural feed resources in an increasing manner may help overcome the existing feed problem.

Regular vaccination and the use of cost-effective balanced diets can have a decisive effect on duck rearing.

As a whole, there are great potentials for an improvement of native duck production in the region by means of nutritional and management, Prof Sarder added.