Is breeding duck hybrids bad?

[Flobbles]

Title pretty self explanitory.

 

[Amiga]

Au contraire, that's how we have such a variety of breeds now.

 

[Duck Drover]

If you are talking about having a good understanding about genetics and you know breed characteristics well enough to predict how a pairing of two different breeds will create a hybrid with specific characteristics from each breed in order to create an improved breed that will breed true for successive generations, then you have a long project ahead of you and many birds to cull in the process. You might eventually come up with a duck breed that has as much value as your original ducks.

If you are talking about putting a low quality bird of one random breed with a low quality bird of another random breed because they were cheap and you fell in love at first sight and you want to make ducks that have even lower value than the two you started with, then you will have more mouths to feed unless you give them away or sell them cheap enough to someone who will "rescue" them from being a meal. There are enough mutt ducks on the planet from such matings that you are not likely to reap any rewards from this type of breeding.

 

[bh1duck]

breeding is only bad if it is done without a purpose. if your purpose is eggs and meat then hybrids can work great because "hybrid vigour" can result in offspring that produce more eggs than either parent strain and/or grow faster resulting in more efficient meat produciton.