I found out many layer farms retires their hens at age 2!

[FutureMillionaire]

As far as far as I remember ducks stop laying eggs at age 7 to 9. I found out that many egg farms that raise ducks retire their girls at age 2!! Once they reached that age, to the duck roasters they go. I have plans to make my one of my muscovies to sit Balut eggs so I can have some mallards on my farm because I only raise my Muscovies for meat and breeders.

I wanna know what age do you retire your layers? I retired none of my Muscovy breeders. My oldest girl is currently sitting on 12 eggs.

 

[416bigbore]

I am willing to guess the members on BYC don't retire their ducks to the roaster when productions slows down. These babies are pets, not food.

 

[Punkybrewster]

When i did raise ducks, i would cull for the freezer at different ages depending on age, gender, size of flock etc. My flock wasnt huge. Maybe 8 to 10 over winter.

I did keep some older ones (around 3-4 years old) but my flock was dual purpose. Meat and pets.

A good layer and broody hung around for a few years and i would cull only a few each year for personal family consumption and to keep the numbers down.

 

[Duck mommy 2019]

I am willing to guess the members on BYC don't retire their ducks to the roaster when productions slows down. These babies are pets, not food.

yep! all my girls (and drakes!) will get to live out their full, hopefully long lives with us

 

[waytomanychickens]

As far as far as I remember ducks stop laying eggs at age 7 to 9. I found out that many egg farms that raise ducks retire their girls at age 2!! Once they reached that age, to the duck roasters they go. I have plans to make my one of my muscovies to sit Balut eggs so I can have some mallards on my farm because I only raise my Muscovies for meat and breeders.

I wanna know what age do you retire your layers? I retired none of my Muscovy breeders. My oldest girl is currently sitting on 12 eggs.

 

[waytomanychickens]

I only have 18 pekin ducks. 3 of them are pushing 12, they are good brooders the rest are about 6. I do "retire" extra drakes as they are rather hard on the hens. I am actually using them as fresh egg layers since I can sell all of their eggs for 50 cents each. I haven't felt I have to retire any hens yet since they are still producing eggs

 

[FutureMillionaire]

Why do layer farms retire them at age 2? Is the production really reduced at that age?

 

[416bigbore]

Why do layer farms retire them at age 2? Is the production really reduced at that age?

I found this link that talks about duck farming for their meat and eggs. (WARNING) GRAPHIC !

https://sentientmedia.org/duck-farming/

 

[Duck mommy 2019]

I found this link that talks about duck farming for their meat and eggs. (WARNING) GRAPHIC !

https://sentientmedia.org/duck-farming/

that’s so sad. definitely one of the reasons i want to adopt rescue ducks next time, instead of purchasing.

 

[Ratchnick]

Yeah i am pretty skeptical of that video, it seemed pretty bias.