Growing mulard at home for beginners and how to reproach
The broiler breed was bred by French breeders in the middle of the 20th century, it is characterized by accelerated maturation and excellent meat productivity. Hybrid ducks, obtained from crossing musk drakes and Peking females, are called mulards, their cultivation both at home and in large farms does not cause difficulties. Ducks gain weight quickly, give dietary meat with excellent taste, and behave calmly and not capricious.
Positive and negative sides
Can mulard ducks be bred at home?
Breeding at home is possible. To obtain broiler chicks, musk and Peking ducks are required. If there is no time for independent selection, then you can buy ducklings from breeders. But the sold mulards often turn out to be weak and die.
To buy healthy chicks that are likely to survive, you need to pay attention to their appearance and behavior.
Healthy mularda ducklings are active, fussy, their wings fit tightly to the body, and the anal area is clean.
Building a hybrid shed
The poultry house in which the mulards will live must be dry, lighted, ventilated, but without drafts. An existing shed can be adapted for a poultry house, for this you need to fill in the cracks, eliminate dampness and mold.
If there is no barn, you will have to build a bird house from scratch. The building is made of wood. The floor should be 40-50 cm from the soil surface, it is thinly coated with slaked lime, straw is laid on top. An entrance with a door and a rise is made from the south side. The roof must be sloped so that rain moisture does not get inside. It is desirable to provide natural lighting, with it, mulard ducks grow more actively, but artificial lighting can also be made.
Duck care rules
The temperature inside the house should be 16-18 ° C, the humidity should be 60-70%. The litter should be thick, straw or sunflower husks will do. Sawdust should not be used: they absorb moisture. While the mulards of one brood are growing, the litter is periodically poured over. After slaughter, the house is disinfected, the floor is re-covered with lime.
French broilers are easy to care for. Feeders are made of wood, plastic or galvanized iron. Ducks feed inaccurately, scatter food, so the food is poured into a third of the container. Drinking bowls are installed small, otherwise the ducks will try to climb into them.
If mulards are intended to obtain not only meat, but also fluff, then in the absence of a natural reservoir, a basin of water should be placed in the pen, where the ducks can swim. 1 m2 the poultry house should have no more than 3 individuals, for the same enclosure space - 1 individual. It is unacceptable that mulard be kept with birds of other species and breeds.
Feeding and fattening
Broilers are fed with compound feed, dividing the diet into starting (first 10 days of life), stimulating (10-25 days) and finishing (from 25 days to slaughter). In the absence of compound feed, you can feed the birds:
- corn (60%);
- oats (20%);
- barley (10%);
- meal, cake (5%);
- bone meal, premixes, chalk, salt (5%).
The grain is given crushed, dry and in a damp mash with the addition of boiled potatoes, bran, vegetables, silage, seaweed, fish. Season the mash with water, whey, meat brew. For better digestion, ducks should eat coarse sand in small quantities.
Mularda ducks feed according to the following scheme:
- from the first days of life to 2 weeks of age - 7-8 times;
- up to 4 weeks - 4-6 times;
- up to 3 months - 3 times.
Breeding for beginners
To breed broilers, choose one drake and 4 females 6-10 months old. Incubator breeding is not required, hens hatch eggs well. The correct time to cross birds is from early May to mid June.
It is impossible to keep the drake chosen for crossing with representatives of his breed, otherwise he will not want to cover the females of another breed offered to him. As a result, not mulard ducklings will appear, but musky or Peking ducklings. At first, mularda drakes usually ignore females of a different breed, but gradually they get used to it, they get down to business.
If the musky drake stubbornly ignores the Peking females, then you can cheat: paint their backs with dark dye.
Ducks fly in comfortable nests with straw bedding. To raise ducklings, nests are set up in a calm and secluded place. Next to the nest, a feeder and a drinker are attached, and a basin of water is placed for swimming. The collection of eggs begins 2 weeks after the birds are joined, and are collected within a week. About 15 eggs are laid in the nest. The hen must be a hen. Mulard ducklings appear a month later. The first week of life is the most difficult one in keeping offspring. Mulardy ducklings survive, grow up quickly at high temperatures and intense lighting.
Growing young animals
On the first day, ducklings are watered with a weak manganese solution. On the second day, boiled yolk is given, it is crumbled on the backs of the chicks, since at first they grab only moving food. If this measure does not help, then you will have to put food in the duckling's mouth.
In the first 20 days, mularda ducklings should be under infrared light at a distance of 50 cm. Then, in the poultry house, a 60 W lamp is turned on for 3 m of space.Until the mulard ducks reach 2 months, they must be kept under 24-hour light. They begin to walk the chicks when they are 3 days old, if the outside air temperature is not lower than +18 ° C. The table indicates what the temperature should be in order for young mularda to grow up without loss.
| Ducklings age, days | House temperature, ° C | Temperature under the lamp, ° C |
| until 3 | 23-25 | 38-40 |
| 3-7 | 22-23 | 30-32 |
| 8-15 | 20-22 | 27-30 |
| 16-21 | 18-20 | 23-25 |
| 22-30 | 16-18 | 20-22 |
When compiling a diet, the growth periods of birds are taken into account. For the first week, mulardy ducklings eat crushed grain with boiled yolk. Next, the yolk is replaced with boiled potatoes. At 2 weeks, mularda begin to eat chopped algae, which helps to strengthen immunity, bran and bone meal to strengthen the skeleton. Boiled carrots and grated fodder beets are added to the diet. In a separate bowl, put sources of minerals - shell rock, chalk, pounded eggshells. From food additives, it is advisable to use low-fat cottage cheese, yeast (1 g per individual).
The water in the drinker is regularly changed. In ducklings, sinuses are often clogged, so water is needed not only for drinking, but also for rinsing the nose.
Possible diseases and vaccination against them
Mularda ducks are not susceptible to most infectious diseases. But there are pathologies that can occur in hybrid broilers:
- Polymorphosis is a parasitic disease caused by an intestinal worm. It is accompanied by exhaustion, diarrhea. For treatment, "Dichlorophen" is used, it is introduced into the feed once (0.5 mg per 1 kg). To prevent disease, the birds are given 0.1% copper sulfate to drink twice a week.
- Aspergillosis is a fungal pathology that occurs when food and litter become moldy. Manifested by lethargy, vomiting, shortness of breath, paralysis of the legs. To remove the fungus, use the drug "Nystatin".
- Viral hepatitis. Mularda ducks need vaccination when a farm is found in a region with an unfavorable epidemic situation. The dry vaccine VGNKI (0.5 ml per animal) is injected intramuscularly into the thigh of the duck.
- Cloacite - inflammation and ulceration of the mucous wall of the cloaca caused by vitamin deficiency. For treatment, vitamin complexes are included in the diet. Ulcers and cracks on the anus of the duck are lubricated first with iodine, then with zinc ointment.
- Cannibalism. Mularda ducks attack each other, peck until they bloody, pluck out feathers either in close, crowded housing, or when there is a lack of proteins in the diet. In the first case, they expand the space of the poultry house, in the second, they add legumes, reverse, meat flour to the diet.
- Baldness is a symptom of vitamin deficiency and mineral deficiency. Ducks should eat more food rich in vitamins A and D.
When can you cut
Mularda ducks become suitable for slaughter in 3-4 months. Feeding longer becomes unprofitable as bird growth slows down. Some farmers slaughter 2.5-month-old ducklings, by this age the pets already weigh 3-4 kg. Do not leave birds for the winter. Mularda ducks in the cold will eat more than they should, which will further reduce profitability.
