1,000 ducklings for Tk 35,000, Tk 5 lakh from eggs in five months

According to The Daily Star, about a decade ago a young man from Delduar upazila, Tangail, then in the wheat trade, kept buying ducks until he had 165 and realised duck rearing could pay. He later worked in Saudi Arabia and Singapore, but the income was not satisfactory. About a year before the report he returned, bought 1,000 Jinding and Khaki Campbell ducklings for Tk 35,000, and built a makeshift shelter by a waterbody near his in-laws' home, where he stayed and kept feed and vaccines. When the water dried up he moved the ducks to a beel near his own village, and later to the Dhaleswari river; he shifts them two or three times a year. The ducks began laying within four months. He now gets 300–350 eggs a day and sells them to local wholesalers for at least Tk 1,000 per hundred. By his account he earned about Tk 5 lakh from eggs in five months while spending Tk 2 lakh to run the farm. Because the ducks eat natural food from the water, he spends little on bought feed such as wheat dust, chaff and paddy. His 1,000 ducks are now worth Tk 3 lakh. His wife took 38 days of training in two phases from the livestock department and can give the ducks primary treatment. He believes training and free vaccination from the livestock department would help unemployed youths take up duck farming.