Indo-ducks: breeding, maintenance and care features

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-17 18:37

Indo-ducks are common birds, especially in European countries. This is due to the fact that their meat is lean, with excellent taste. In the wild, these fairly large birds are found in a number of countries in South America, including Mexico. They are picky about care and food, have a unique ability to survive. Thanks to these qualities, the breeding of Indowka is not difficult, they are ideal for home cultivation.

Description of birds

Indo-ducks are called Muscovy ducks. They have a broad chest and a small neck. Their legs are short and their wings are powerful. The average weight of a drake reaches six kilograms, and the length is 90 cm. The female is much smaller than the male. Its weight is from three to three and a half kilograms, length - 60 cm.

Color varies, it depends on the breed. On their head, level with the eyes and under the very beak, there are red growths, from whicholder birds smell of musk, which determines the name.

What is the peculiarity of the indo?

From ordinary birds of this species, they differ in size, color and various exterior characteristics. Their meat has the same nutritional properties as that of a goose and an ordinary duck. It is soft, the texture is dense, there is little fat, it is considered a dietary product.

Indo-woks have another positive feature: they do not cause inconvenience, as they behave silently, sometimes creating a quiet hiss. For this they received another name - "mute". Due to its positive characteristics, the breeding of indoutas is becoming popular in our country.

Female and male: what is the difference?

Gender is determined when the ducklings are very small, two to three months old. How to distinguish an indoto? The male is distinguished from the female by the presence of feathers on the tail of the drake, connected with a ring. This is the main sign. The sex of a bird is also determined by its neck. In the female it is thin, graceful, in the male it is large, with a smooth transition to the head.

Indoutok breeds

These birds are distinguished by a number of features:

• Plumage color.
• The color of the eyes and legs.
• Beak colors.

Indoutok breeds are shown in the table below.

Breed name	Plumage coloration	Eyes	Beak	Other
White	Compliesname	Greys	Pale pink	Yellow legs
Black	Colors of the night, purple on the body, blue-green on the wings	Regular bird color	Black	Grey fluff
Black and white	Resinous, shiny black overflow on the back, purple on the body	Brown, rarely blue	Red with a dark finish	White feathers on head and chest
Wild Brown	Chocolate with green shimmer	Brown	Red with dark tip	White feathers on head and chest
Blue	Correct with the title	Regular bird color	Black&Grey	Dark edging on the wings
Wild	Black with greenish, purple, purple overflow	Brown	Brown	Yellow toes with black metatarsals; integumentary wings white
White patterned	White with black markings	Bird Common	Red-blue, charcoal at base and tip	Yellow pluseswith black spots
Wild Blue	Blue with dark stripes on feathers	Bird Common	At the base - black, then red-blue, the tip - dark	Dark metatarsals

How to prepare the room?

Worthy maintenance of indoutas during their breeding is the main condition. It is important to consider the peculiarity of these birds. Muscovy ducks are unpretentious, but they do not get along with animals of other species. Therefore, for their breeding, you need to prepare a separate room. His choice must be taken seriously: in winter it should be warm in the bird house, and cool in summer. The room must be equipped with ventilation and make sure that there is no humidity in it. To prevent pecking, bright lighting is unacceptable. To do this, the light bulb should be painted red or orange.

Ducklings are most often placed in a private courtyard or on the territory of a summer residence. For this, the use of collapsible structures is the most suitable option. But for the winter, such a house should be insulated. Its arrangement depends on the size of the room. If it is large, its floor is covered with a grid with small cells. Only after that lay a litter of straw or sawdust. Floor insulation is a very important point in arranging a home for birds, as their paws are very sensitive to low temperatures. When breeding indoutok, calculate the area of \u200b\u200bthe room is verysimple: one and a half meters square is enough for one individual.

If the dwelling is small in size, the birds are placed in cages that are arranged in tiers in a vertical position. In order to keep indouches clean, the back wall of the cage must be lower than the front. This design allows you to move the excrement from under the legs there.

Walking birds

Growing indoutok for meat is carried out with the provision of walking. They are kept separately from other poultry in individual rooms with unhindered entry and exit. The room should be more naturally lit and closed. It is very important that it is cool in summer.

When breeding indoutok for meat, the correct location of the range is of great importance, as it will provide the bird with sunlight to a greater extent. The paddock should be in a southerly direction from the poultry house. In order for the bird to quickly and safely exit and return back, it is necessary to make closing holes in the wall, the size of which is 40 cm. The holes should be located at the level of a 30-centimeter mark from the floor. Ladders made of boards are brought on both sides for the entry and exit of the bird without injuries on its paws.

The flock leaves for walking immediately after the morning meal, at about 10 o'clock. Here the Indian women spend the whole day, they are driven into the dwelling an hour before dark. These birds have good immunity, are able to endure cold weather. But early in the spring and late in the autumn, being on the run, they often freezepaws. And if you allow Indo-ducks to swim in winter, icing of feathers is guaranteed, since the fat content under the skin is very low.

How to make bedding?

For this, the use of various materials is allowed: sawdust, wood shavings, peat, straw, chaff. For one bird per season, you need to prepare 10-12 kg of any material that can be used for bedding. Before laying it, the bottom of the room for keeping indoutok is covered with lime at the rate of one kilogram per square meter. The layer of the litter itself is thin, about seven centimeters. But at the end of the next season, its height increases to 20 cm.

If birds are kept in the house during the winter, and at this time the growth of young is expected, the litter must be changed and made its thickness greater than the previous one, otherwise the birds may freeze. Ducklings cannot be placed on the old flooring. It needs to be collected and taken out, and the room must be disinfected.

Duck house equipment

When the bird house is built, the floor is covered with bedding, you need to equip it with everything necessary for the life of your pets.

• Install the feeders in the calculation of one piece for five individuals. Each must be one meter long and 25 cm wide.
• Arrange drinking bowls, it is better if they are not wide so that birds do not bathe in them.
• Build perches 40 cm high from the floor. To do this, just put the logs on top of each other.
• Place near nest drinkers. Their number depends on the size of the flock. The birds themselves will find their nests, insulate them and carryeggs, and when the time comes, hatch them.
• In winter, the temperature in the bird house should be positive. To do this, you need to install heating devices in it, for example, heaters, or potbelly stoves.

Feeders

Breeding indoutas at home always raises many questions for beginner poultry farmers. For example, about feeders: what to make them from, how many pieces do you need? A rectangular feeder can be made from thin boards. During meals, ducklings usually climb there with their paws. To prevent their actions, in which the feeder often remains upside down with the food, a vertical bar is nailed on top.

Home breeding for beginners usually starts with a small number of birds. Therefore, feeders are made in a simplified version. It is enough to stock up on tin cans, you can use them. Carefully cut off the lid, hammer the edges so that the birds do not get hurt, and hang them on evenly spaced hooks.

How many feeders are needed and how long they should be, calculated taking into account the area of the feeder for different foods per indouka. This norm for dry food is two centimeters square, for a mash - at least 10 cm of the entire length of the feeder.

Nest

In the wild, the bird itself will take care of the place for incubation of eggs, and at home, its owner should think about it. Nests for indouts need to be prepared before April, since it is at this time that thehatching instinct.

• The nest can be arranged in a cardboard box. Place a natural fiber cloth on the bottom.
• There are 20 eggs in a box. After hatching them for two weeks, you can put the same amount.
• A small farmstead with a feeder, a drinking bowl, and a bath is set up near the nest. The fact is that, while hatching eggs, the mother duck is in one place in a sitting position for a long time. From this, parasites start up in her feathers. To get rid of them, the bird will bathe. In addition, by moistening the feathers, the mother hen maintains the humidity regime. The nest needs protection. If there is no fence, foreign chicks often enter it. When the mother hen sees them, she will not be up to her own nest. She leaves him and starts raising foster chicks.

What kind of eggs do Muscovy ducks lay?

In size, they differ little from chickens, except perhaps a little larger. The egg of an indochka weighs about 70 g, is painted white, sometimes with brown specks. In shape and useful properties, it resembles an ordinary duck egg. Therefore, without a doubt, you can eat eggs of an indochka, but you only need to do a heat treatment first.

The eggs of these birds are a fatty product, but the fats contained in the yolk are unsaturated. The yolk has a pronounced orange color, which is due to the high content of carotene, which has a beneficial effect on the brain. The eggshell is thick, its transparent film is poorly breathable, so the process of proper incubationembryo is hampered.

What to feed indoutok?

Muscovy ducks, despite their unpretentiousness in food, need to be provided with a balanced diet. They can not be fed hot and warm food. What to feed the Indians? The basis of the diet are cereals. Birds are fed corn, oats, wheat, barley. The diet should contain vegetable supplements and greens. The menu needs to be diversified with yeast, bone and meat flour, cake, bran. A caring owner sometimes pampers birds with porridge with greens.

It is easier to feed them in summer, as a significant part of the diet is fresh grass. The rate of water per individual per day is one liter, feed - 400 g. In order for the egg of the indochka to be with a strong shell, chalk or small shells are added to the feed. And to normalize the digestive process, containers filled with gravel are placed in the bird house.

How to care for chicks?

When growing indoutas, it is very important to get he althy offspring. The chicks will hatch from the eggs on the 35th day after they are planted by the mother hen. They are covered with a shiny yellow fluff, can stand on legs. The eyes of newborns are convex, with a shine. The chicks are very small and defenseless, weighing only 60g.

Newborns cannot eat and drink on their own. Their mother will teach them. But if ducklings were bought or bred in an incubator, they will have to be fed, resorting to a little trick. The first food of day-old chicks is a hard-boiled egg and chopped into small pieces. Food is sprinkled on their backs. Toddlers peck it with pleasure from theirrelative. If an egg crumb falls on the floor, they will find it there too.

On the second day, in addition to the eggs, the chicks are fed with bran and milk. On the fifth - add meat waste in boiled and chopped form. By the tenth day of life, chicks can be fed boiled potatoes. Vitamin and mineral supplements should be given from birth. They are bought at a pharmacy. Be sure to follow the dosage indicated in the instructions.

Useful information

When breeding indoutas, you need to stock up on knowledge so that their productivity is high. Some tips:

• Plucking feathers from each other means a lack of vitamins and greens in the feed. To do this, you need to diversify the diet of birds containing additives.
• Chicks who are a day old have their wings cut off at the ends so that they cannot fly. Places of cuts are treated with potassium permanganate. If this procedure is done to adult Indian women, they will not lay eggs.
• Sometimes chicks accidentally swallow small metal objects: nails, pieces of wire. This must not be allowed, as they will die immediately.
• The productivity of birds will decrease if they experience hypothermia in winter.