Khaki Cambell Duck

Ours is a river irrigated country. It has a lot of ponds, ditch, canals, lakes etc. There are large kinds of ducks. Among them Khaki Cambell duck, Indian Runner duck are notable in the south-east Asia. These hybrid duck lay about 300 eggs every year. For this reason duck farming is increasing than that of poultry day by day. These are because- 

• Duck eggs are bigger than that of poultry. 
• Duck lay 40-50 eggs more than that of poultry. 
• Duck does not need so much care than that of poultry. 
• Duck house do not need so neat and clean than that of poultry.
• Duck possesses fewer diseases than that of poultry. 
• Duck is very cleaver than that of poultry so they can transmit between houses and ponds easily.
• Duck lay eggs for 2 years which is more than that of poultry.
• Duck lay eggs in the morning so it need less time to collect. 
• We can make farm on the bank of river, side of the ponds and damp land that are low priced land.
• Duck collect food (snails, clams, fish, insects etc.) from ditch, canal, drain and low land that save food cost.
• Duck eat many kinds of insects that transmit diseases. So they improve our environment. 

Housing:

In order to protect from fox, weasel, tit, natural calamities and thieves, they need safety houses. They can’t tolerate severe temperature. So we have to notice about the temperature of the house. We have to be careful the following things when we make house.

1.  Selection of place: Its house will be airy and lighted. So the place of the house will be open. It will be located apart from town or dense locality. The house will be open so that air and light can pass through the house at an open place. The farms will in such a place that mud is sandy, drain can easily make and where grass can grow easily. Big tree can’t stay in a farm. It is apart from poultry farm so that diseases can’t contaminate easily.

2.  Sample of house: The shape and area of house depends on the number of ducks. Small house is needed for a few numbers of ducks and large house is needed for huge number of ducks. But long, narrow and rectangle house is suitable for ducks. We have to shade the house in such a way that severe temperature can’t posses in the house.

Management of houses:

1.  Temperature: Generally 12.8⁰C (55⁰F) – 23.9⁰C (75⁰F) temperature is suitable for ducks. But lower 4.4⁰C (40⁰F) and greater 37.8⁰C (100⁰F) temperature is harmful.

2.  Humidity: Generally natural weather is suitable for physical growth, hair growing and eggs production. Further artificial environment harms the eggs production. 70% humidity is suitable for ducks. Less than 30% humidity causes hair falling and greater than 70% humidity causes Coccidian and worm then they seem unstable. So then we have to dry the litter and airy the house.

3.  Light (Artificial): Artificial light helps the duck in physical growth, intercourse and eggs production. Baby duck need artificial light at the age of 6 weeks at night. As a result they eat much food and they physically grow easily. The ducks which lay eggs need 14-16 hours light a day. For this one 60 watt bulb need for 300 sq. ft. area. For broiler ducks need all night light.

4.  Ventilation: 40% of walls require wire net or bamboo sticks fence so that air can blow easily through the house.

5.  Floor: We have to take attention that the floor of the house is not damp and rat can’t enter into the house. Baby ducks need net floor up to 7-8 weeks age and aged ducks need concrete floor (terrace floor) floor.

6.  Bed: We have to spread the object (liter) on the floor that can absorb humidity. We can use straw, rice husk and wood powder as a litter.

7.  Water: They need sufficient pure drinking water.

Care of eggs: Collecting eggs from the house in basket or tray we have to clean the eggs with warm water or series paper.

Reservation of eggs: 

• With lime water: We have to mix 1 kg. Lime water with 20 liters fresh water for 10 minutes. Then we have to pouring the upper clean water and then put down eggs under the water for two months can save. (You can see the post - 'Preservation of eggs')

Maintenance of child ducks: We have to maintain Campbell ducks child on net. The net is 1 – 1.5 foot high from the floor. So the flux can remove easily. As a result, the child ducks supper from less disease.

For first few days Campbell ducks child need to control the temperature. They need 30⁰ C (85⁰ F) – 32⁰ C (90⁰ F). Then 2.8⁰ C (5⁰ F) temperature heat will reduce every week until the temperature become at 24⁰ C (75⁰ F). In summer we have to control temperature 3 – 4 weeks and in winter 6 – 8 weeks. In 20 – 25 days child ducks may be on the floor. Before the floor we have to spread dry rice husk or dry wood powder with 5-7 cm. deep on the floor. The concrete floor (terrace floor) floor is better for this purpose. The floor should not wet with dam or any other causes. If we have turn over the litter 2/3 times every weak and mix them with lime. So litter will be dry, free of germ and bad smell. We shall be careful so that rain water and drinker water can’t mix with litter. If so then we have to change it with dry litter.

Age	Area for eggs production (square foot)	Area for meat production (square foot)
0 – 1	0.25	0.25
1 – 2	0.33	0.50
2 – 3	0.50	0.60 – 0.70
3 – 4	0.60	0.75 – 1.00
4 – 8	0.75 – 1.00	1.00 – 1.50
8 – 12	1.00 – 0.50	1.50 – 2.00
12 – above	2.00 – 3.00	3.00 – 4.00

We can save a lot of savings if we rear them on the pond. Because they eat aquatic plant pest-insects, fish eggs, small fishes, oyster, snail, geri etc. We have to give them full of food if we rearing them in intake system. It will take 4 – 5 kg of balanced diet every duck for 8 weeks and 12.5 kg for 20 weeks.

A full aged duck takes 130 – 150 gm of food regularly. They should feed always splash. In this system food waste is less and they can take food easily.

Food feeding rate of Khaki Campbell duck:

Age (weeks)	Rates (times per day)
0 – 4	4
4 – 8	3
8+	2

Feeding area per child duck:

Age (weeks)	Area (Inch per child)
0 – 2	0.50
2 – 4	0.75
4 – 7	1.50

Balanced diet of duck:

To get eggs from Campbell Duck we should feed them balanced diet. We can make this balanced diet easily. The prices are very cheap. We can believe that we feed them good food.

Rules for creating balanced diet:

We can make balanced diet by mixing ingredients as following method-

Ingredients	Percent
Wheat	30
Broken rice	40
Black sesame cake	10
Soybean cake	10
Dried fish powder	8
Broken oyster	2

We have to mix 10 gm of vitamin A, B2, D3, E, K and 50 gm chlorine chloride with 100 kg of food. We feed them chlorine chloride for growing up and cockcidiostat for cockcidia dieses when they are at age of 6 – 8 weeks. We give them cockcidiostat up to 12 weeks of age. Then we give them oyster instate of dried fish. This saves expenditure. 

Diseases of Khaki Campbell Ducks:

This kind of duck has less disease. This disease depends on the care of farm workers. If the workers take care in scientific ways and feed them balanced diet then they have very less disease. But workers should vaccinate them two diseases such as Duck-plague and Duck- Cholera.

Mixed cultivation of Ruhi, Mola and Puti fishes

Mixed farming of Ruhi, Mola and Puti fishes:

Selection of Pond / Lake:

• Clay loamy soil of the pond.
• Medium size.
• Free from flood.
• Sufficient sunlight.
• Water depth is 1 – 1.5 meters.

Pond preparation:

• Repair pond band and clean the weed.
• Remove cannibalistic and harmful fishes and insects.
• Apply 100 kg lime per acre of pond area.
• After 7 – 8 days apply 500 – 700 kg cow dung, 10 kg urea and 5 kg TSP. 

Carp stock, food and manure:

• Ruhi 3000 – 3200 (10 -15 cm long), Puti 6000 and Mola 6000 (5 – 6 cm long) carps can stock per acre of pond area.
• Give supplementary food 5 – 10 percent of their body weight (oil cake, rice powder, hask).
• For Grass Carp give leafs and grass.
• No extra food need for Mola and Puti fish.
• Apply 400 – 600 kg cow dung and 10 kg urea after leaving carps.

Fish collection:

• Collect partially Mola and Puti fish with net of 15 days interval after escaping carps of 2 months.
• Collect more than 750 gm weight fishes and stock another carps.
• At the end of year collect finally.

Snail Farming

What is Snail?

Snail is in class of Gastropoda (in mollusca). Its body is soft but covered with gnarled (twisted) shell. Generally snail means terrestrial snail, marine and fresh water snail. It is seen in desert, rivers, abiding, pond, lake, ocean and coastal areas. Although most people are familiar with terrestrial snails but actually they are negligible in number. Marine snails are large in varieties and numbers. Freshwater snails as well as saline water snails are also large in number. Most of the snails are herbivorous but some marine snails eat plants and meat.

Why do we need Snail cultivation?

Snail is used as food of many kinds of fish, poultry and duck. It reduces food cost and makes yields fruitful. So make the business profitable. We can use fish food and poultry food but that is costly and makes the business less profitable. The food that we buy from the market is mixed with dangerous chemicals that are harmful for the fish, poultry and duck health. The food business men mix that chemical for storing. But if we make those foods in our houses then food cost will become less. And farm will be healthful, more profitable and environment friendly.

How can we cultivate it?

For every acre of land we have to use mixer of 100 kg cow-dung, 100 kg oil-cake, 25 kg urea with sufficient water. The mixer is divided in to 4 parts and has to use every 3 days intervals. When the water of the pond is dark green color then we have to collect 25 kg snails from the canals, ditches or ponds and scatter them around the pond. Within 10 – 15 days snail increases heavily. Next within 35 – 40 days snail will become fully matured. That means we can produce 16650 kg of snail from 1 acre of land within 40 – 45 days. We have to mix 25 kg dung, 25 kg cake 10 kg urea as compost manure and scatter it per acre of land area for every 3 days. We can collect snail after 45 days with net. Then mix it with rice powder and break them with Pilet machine. Then they are drying in the sun and make them fine-powder with oil-cake machine. Then this can use as fish food.

Fish Farming

Ruhi Fish:

It is a fish of tasty water. It is suitable for ponds and river. It is a tasty fish.

Physical Characteristic: Its head is comparatively small to body. Upper side portion is more convex than lower side. Lips are thick and fold and have 2 small trunks in front of lip.

Food and Eating habits: Ruhi fish eat food from mid level water. It is carnivorous. It eats animal particles when carp then plant particles, animal particles and rotten organic particles.

Maturity and Reproduction: Ruhi fish grow length up to 1 meter. It becomes maturity within 3 years. In a suitable climate it laid eggs in open water within May to August. We can reproduce eggs artificially in hatchery.

Katala Fish:

It is rapidly growing fish. It is suitable for ponds though it is a fish of river. It is also a tasty fish.

Physical Characteristic: Its head is comparatively large to body. Face is wide and bent to upward. Upper side portion of body is more convex than lower side. Upper lip is thin and lower lip is thick. The upper part of the body is dark gray and sides are silvery. Fins are blackish.

Food and Eating habits: Katala fish eat food from upper level water. It is carnivorous. It eats plant particles and animal particles.

Maturity and Reproduction: Katala fish become 1 meter length in maturity. It becomes sexual maturity within 3 – 5 years. A female Katala fish conceive 15,00,000 – 30,00,000  of eggs. In a suitable climate it laid eggs in open water within June to August. We can also reproduce eggs artificially in hatchery.

Mrigela Fish:

It is a fish of river. It can farm in ponds also. It is a rapidly growing fish. It is a tasty fish.

Physical Characteristic: Its body is long. Its lower body portion is about straight. Upper lip is curve towards bellow and has two small trunks in front of it. The upper part of the body is gray and both sides and lower part are silvery.

Food and Eating habits: Mrigel fish eat food from bottom level of the pond. It is carnivorous. It eats animal particles, little animals and rotten organic materials from clay and bottom level.

Maturity and Reproduction: Mrigel fish become 1 meter length 8 – 9 kg weigh in maturity. It earns sexual maturity in second year. A female Mrigel fish conceive 1,00,000 – 5,00,000  of eggs. In a suitable climate it laid eggs in open water within May to August. We can reproduce eggs artificially in hatchery.

Silver Carp Fish:

It is absolutely fresh water fish. It can farm in ponds also. It is a rapidly growing fish. It is a tasty fish. It is normally born in China and Russia. But its cultivation is worldwide now a day.

Physical Characteristic: Its body is covered with small size scales. Belly side is more convex than back side. Tail is narrow but middle body is wide. Its body is long. Its backside is slightly brown.

Food and Eating habits: Silver fish takes food from upper level of the pond. It normally takes small and rotten plants.

Maturity and Reproduction: Silver fish become 1 meter length and 8 – 9 kg weigh in maturity. It earns sexual maturity in second year. We can reproduce carp artificially in hatchery.

Grass Carp Fish:

It can farm in ponds. It is a rapidly growing fish. It is normally born in ChinaRussia. But its cultivation is worldwide now a day. and

Physical Characteristic: Its body is long. Its lower body portion is about straight. Upper lip is curve towards bellow. Fin of back side is small. The upper part of the body is slightly green. Head is comparatively small to body.

Food and Eating habits: Silver Carp fish eat food from all level of the pond. It is herbivorous. It eats aquatic weeds and green grass.

Reproduction: it doesn’t leave eggs in closed water. In a suitable climate it laid eggs in open water like river. We can reproduce eggs artificially in hatchery.

Mirror Carp:

It is found in temperate region of Asia.

Physical Characteristics: Its body is skate. Head is comparatively small to body. Its body is covered with reddish scales. It has a little number of row scales. Back side is slightly brown and belly side is golden. Scales are big.

Food and Eating habits: It takes food from bottom level of the pond. It is carnivorous. It eats animal particles, little insects and rotten organic materials from clay and bottom level.

Reproduction: It can laid eggs in ponds. It leaves eggs in summer or rainy seasons and winter seasons two times in a year.

Mushroom Cultivation

Mushroom palate is incomparable. It has a special taste of its own. And if we use it in curry then its taste will grow highly. Mushroom cooking is very easy. By frilling or cutting mushroom into pieces in any kind of curry. It can be cooked individually. The simplest recipe is creating mushroomi. We have to soluble pea-flour in a bowl. Put salt and Kalojira in it. Then drown the mushroom into pea-flour soluble and put it into hot oil for sometimes it will become mushroomi. Warm mushroomi is very tasty.

After collecting Mushroom SPAWN from a trusted institute cut SPAWN packets in ‘D’ shaped with 1 inch radius along the shoulder of the PP packets. Then the spawns need to drown in water. Then taking off them from water cut the packets. The both sides cutting place will be removed with blade. Then the packets will drowned under water in prostrate for 5 – 15 minutes. After then removing water arrange them well on floor or racks for cultivation.

Arranging spawn per every 2 inches yields good for consecutive redesigning care. For good yields need 70% - 80% humidity around it. For this it requires water spray 4 – 5 times a day at summer, 2 – 3 times at rainy and winter seasons so that always humidity contains around it but water don’t stay anywhere. Spray Nozzle should distance from spawn so that spray water doesn’t hit the spawn. Before sun rising and in the afternoon spray increase the yields. In addition, the compatibility with the temperature and humidity spread wet newspaper, long polythene sheets, and wet gunny packets a little higher up the packets. In hot weather by spraying several times on floors and walls temperature can control.

Pond Preperation

Pond Preparation:

Fish farming is one kind of cultivation. We have to prepare ponds before leaving carp in the ponds. In order to prepare ponds we should follow next steps.

1.  Pond reformation,

2.  Cleaning Weeds,

3.  Remove huge and unexpected fishes,

4.  Use of lime,

5.  Use of fertilizers and

6.  Experimentation of natural food in the ponds.

Ponds Reformation: It is the first step of ponds reformation.

Clay Removal: If there stay additional clay we have to remove it as it causes harmful gasses, bacteria and insects. In order to upgrade the pond’s environments we should remove extra clay (more than 20 – 25 cm deep). We can do it by pumping water out of the pond.

Recovering Boundaries: If the boundaries are unprotected we should repair it immediately. Otherwise it may over flood in the rainy season. Fishes in the ponds can leave the ponds and huge fishes can enter into the ponds that causes harm our farm. We also plant grass all over the side boundaries to make it firm.

Weed Cleaning: Weed consume foods from ponds water that destroy natural foods and fertilizers. We can clean weeds as follows-

1. Physical labor: We can clean floating weeds by physical labor easily.

2. Biological Methods: If we keep a few numbers of herbivorous fishes such as Grass Carp, Rajputi etc. they eat floating and drowned weeds as well. After leaving carp in the ponds we can remove it easily in this way. If we reserve this kinds of fish a few number in a pond then the pond is clean as well.

3. Applying Chemicals: Extra green moss is harmful for ponds. It lacks oxygen in pond water. As a result growth of fishes will decrease or may die. We can apply 35 gm copper sulfate per hundreds of pond area with 1 meter height for solving this problem.

Huge and unexpected fishes Removal:

Huge fishes eat carp and fish food. As a result growth of fishes decreases. We can remove it as follows-

1.  Drying Pond: By drying ponds all kinds of fishes can caught easily. Huge fishes and harmful insects can easily enter into clay. By keeping pond bottom dry for a few days we can destroy them and poisonous gasses easily. As a result productivity of fish increases.

2.  Pulling Net: By pulling thick net again and again we can collect them easily. We should tie weighted concrete materials with lower border of net and pull it slowly.

3.  Applying Chemicals: When drying pond is impossible then we can use chemicals like Rotenon and Fostonic for destroying all kind of fishes and germs

Elements	Gm/hundreds of land/meter
Rotenon	30 -35 gm
Fostonic	3 gm (1 tab)

Mix Rotenon or Fostonic with pond water and pull net 2/3 times then fish will die. We should collect fishes with net immediately otherwise fish will rotten.

Use of Lime: Lime purifies water. Use of lime in the pond is essential. It supplies calcium for fishes, reduce acidity and increase alkalinity. As a result increases fertility of soil and water. It destroys harmful germs and insects. Use of lime depends on soil P.H.

Soil P.H.	Lime (kg/hundreds)
0.0 – 3.9	10
4.0 – 4.5	5
4.6 – 5.5	3
5.6 – 6.5	2
6.6 – 7.5	1

We should not through dry lime on water. At first we mix it with water in a plastic or mud pots. Then we can through on water after cooling lime solution.

Fertilizer:

Fish production depends on growing small size green plants such as Fytoplanton. And Fytoplanton production depends on nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Some times these elements are not sufficient in pond water. So we have to supply fertilizer in the ponds. These fertilizers are of two kinds-

1.Organic Fertilizer: We can get this fertilizers from cow dung, poultry stool, compost and green fertilizers.

2.Chemical Fertilizer: We generally use UREA, TSP, and MP etc. as fertilizer.

Experiment of Natural Food in Water:

The color of water with sufficient natural foods is green or brawn. After applying fertilizers for 5 – 7 days we have to collect pond water in a transparent glass. If we can see green or brawn particles in that water then it is suitable for leaving carp.

Cost Effective Method of Fish Farming

The population of our country is very large. This population needs a huge quantity of fish to meet their protein demand. But fishes that grown by nature can’t supply this demand. So it is not reasonable to depend on natural sources to meet the food needs of the large number of community. For this reason over past few years, many farmers concentrated their idea on fish farming. There was a time when the profit was equivalent to investment. But gradually the amount of the fish farming decreased. Sometimes it becomes lose in business. So this is the time to make production cost less to increase our profit. Though the main production cost of fish farming is food cost so we have to decrease food cost. About 70% or more is food cost so we have to decrease it. Here I discuss about a method that is comparatively cheap, waste less and scientific.

Methods of Weight Ratio (Obsolete)

Generally fish farmers supply food to the pond according to total fish body weight. In this system they supply food in such a measurement that in a 40 decimal pond area if there are 150 pieces of fish in each decimal then every 100 gm weigh of fish 6000 pieces physical weigh is 100 gm * 6000 = 600 kg. According to 6 % ratio they need 36 kg food. Fish farmers supply food to their pond in this manner. Because fisheries scientists in the country with a strong suggestion to the fish farmers to use the method for a long days. Once there was a time when profit was incredible but now I think that profit is in limited amount so loss of food waste is one of the reasons for fish farming. In this case, the weight of 100 grams of fish needs how much food and daily growth rate of it doesn’t having to learn fish farmers supply them food which is strongly related to production costs.

Cost Effective Method :

Generally, each fish has a daily maximum physical growth rate that can’t be exceeded though it feed more and more food. As for example in a fixed age or weight if a fish has (ADGR) Average Daily Growth Rate is 2 gm and in this circumstance or situation we feed it 6 gm of food everyday then the ADGR can’t be more than 2 gm. In this situation we should supply it 4 gm of food everyday. We know that if the FCR (Feed Conservation Rate) is more than 2 then profit can’t be expected. The general FCR is 1:1.7 – 1:2. The rule is

Demand of Food = ADGR x FCR

If a fish of with high ADGR 2.5 need 5 gm of food (5=2.5 x 2). So for 6000 pieces of fish need 5 gm X 6000 = 30 kg of food. So if we apply them 36 kg food then 6 kg food will waste that can causes water pollution or if the fish eat it that will make extra stool before digestion. The food waste under water can’t be understood to the fish farmer.  But in maximum cases the food waste is more which prohibited our profit in farming. By using the cost effective method our fish farmer can get the following benefits:

1.      Food waste will be less.

2.      Water quality will not be lost due to food waste.

3.      We can get conception of daily growth rate, physical weight and demand of food.

4.      It less the mortality of fish.

5.      It ensures the profit as the cost of fish production is less.

Terms of the results: 

1. We have to know the (ADGR) Average Daily Growth Rate (gm) by periodic checks for every 10 days. Correct information can be get in unique fish farming which can’t be in mixed cultivation. 
2. Food should be balanced especially protein percentage are known. 
3. We have to gather knowledge about age and average daily growth rate of different species of fish/the fish that has been cultivated.

The main issue of this cost effective method is at first we have to determine the demand of food then to feed them. I hope that fish farmers can be economically benefited through this cost effective method.