Kira Stoletova

Every person, even those who are not related to farming and breeding poultry, knows that the drake and the duck are individuals of the opposite sex belonging to the same species. Thus, the drake is a male duck, which is quite large in relation to the female. For example, the female of the common egg and meat breed of the domestic duck reaches a maximum of 3.5 kg, while the male is able to grow up to 5.

Ducks are very popular with poultry farmers in our country. Few people will say that he does not like large eggs with a large bright yolk or the tender meat of this bird. However, it is important for poultry farmers to be able to immediately recognize what gender the ducklings are, because for good egg production and selection, the ratio between females and males must be 4:1. Anyone who has been breeding birds for more than a year will determine what gender the chick is without much effort.

Sex determination in chicks

A male bird among grown chicks can be identified even from a photo - the child can handle this. The baby drake is the owner of a colorful plumage, while the feather of the female is gray and inconspicuous. But young animals begin to look like this at about 2 months. How to distinguish a drake from a duck when they are still quite chicks?

The drake chick is more active. Anyone who lives in the village knows that if you pick up the cub by the legs and leave it upside down for a while, the female will be calm, and the male baby will turn his head and try to pull himself up to his feet. Of course, it is impossible to know for sure what gender the bird is, but there is still a certain probability.

The method that allows you to determine the sex of even a two-week-old cub with the greatest accuracy is the so-called "Japanese method". It consists in the fact that the duckling must be taken with the left hand so that the chick is turned with its head towards the person holding it, and then gently massage the anal passage of the cub. To do this, slightly pull up the edge of the cloaca. If a small pseudopenis appears, you have a male cub in front of you. In the female, a membrane-covered opening of the oviduct is found, located on the left side of the cloaca. On palpation - small rounded seals. In the same way, gender is determined in geese.

A pseudopenis is a distinctive feature of drakes, since most males of other types of poultry, such as, for example, a rooster and a turkey, do not have it. This organ looks like a small fold with a size of up to 4 mm. Sometimes it can be detected in a cub by simply pulling the tail to the back. This and Japanese methods give an almost error-free result if you act carefully and correctly.

Differences in adult males

Distinguishing an adult male from a female in a duck family is not at all difficult. In addition to the fact that the drake stands out for its bright plumage, it is also much larger than a duck, weighing twice as much.

Also, drakes differ from females in the following ways:

• Triangular beak with an outgrowth at the tip, the duck has a trapezoidal beak.
• Massive and irregularly shaped heads with an extension from the forehead, in contrast to the rounded and small heads of females.
• The muscles of the legs are more developed, just like the muscles of the back and wings, which is why their bodies are longer and larger compared to the bodies of females.
• The feathers at the tip of the tail curl up, forming a ring in some breeds.
• Drakes, unlike ducks, do not quack, but make peculiar hissing sounds and whistles. The duck, with the help of its loud voice, calls ducklings and attracts males during the mating season.
• Stable immunity - drakes are less affected by pathogenic bacteria and viruses, stay strong and healthy longer
• Aggressive behavior. Males often try to fly away or escape from the master's house, fighting for leadership.

The color of male ducks during the mating season

Drakes are distinguished by their bright coloration, which reaches its peak of intensity in winter and spring period- when ducks form pairs. So, for example, the male mallard, the progenitor of the domestic duck, has a remarkable dark green color of the head with tints, ending on the neck with a thin annular strip. The back and wings are gray with brown tan, black rump, blue or purple mirror in the upper part of the wings. After molting, the drake differs from the gray duck only in its brown chest and yellow beak. It is better not to leave males in the same territory with laying hens, also because the duck is a very shy mother, especially when the ducklings have just hatched and every chick is in her account.

The male Muscovy duck is most often dark in color with light inserts, but there are also completely white individuals. A distinctive feature of the drakes of this breed are corals - abundant red growths on the head.

In the mandarin duck, a small woodland bird, the drake has a distinctive crest on its head, a contrasting golden-brown back, and white and purple striped wings.

The behavior of drakes during the mating season

During the mating season, ducks and drakes of ordinary breeds behave equally actively. The ratio of ducks to drakes is 4 to 1, especially in the Musk breed. Ducks sexually mature earlier, so the male should be 1-1.5 months older. In order to breed drakes, it is recommended to use them for 3 breeding cycles, after which the birds are no longer so good for procreation.

In no case should you force the process of molting in males! The drake may lose potency and will not trample ducks and fertilize eggs. As a result, he will not leave offspring - and how much effort of breeders will be wasted! In order to avoid such an unpleasant situation after oviposition, it is better to transplant it to recently molted ducks.

Gr. SLEEPOVAL - DRAKE

Drake is handsome!

Often, male Muscovy ducks are used to breed so-called mulards. To do this, it is necessary that the female and male match each other in color. That is, if a musky male is gray, then a female of an ordinary breed selected for him should also be gray. But it should be borne in mind that musk drakes are very indifferent to the fulfillment of "marital duty", especially with females of other breeds, so most of the eggs may be unfertilized. There are no more than 4 ducks per one such drake.

Peculiarity: quite fatty, not introduced into the diet of young children.

Both the meat of domestic ducks and wild ducks are used for food.

In 100 g ducklings(without skin) 135 kcal.

Duck meat belongs to the dark types of meat (dark brown, brown-red). Therefore, it is considered not as dietary as white meat, but it contains many useful substances and has excellent taste.

Composition and nutritional properties of duck

100 g of duck contains:

Water - 73.77 g

Proteins - 18.28 g

Fats - 5.95 g

Carbohydrates - 0.94 g

Ash - 1.06 g

Useful properties of duck meat

Although duck is rich in cholesterol, it also contains omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which are beneficial for the cardiovascular system. Choline, contained in duck meat, is involved in fat metabolism and is very important for the formation of cell membranes.

The concentration of vitamin A in duck meat is much higher than, say, in chicken, so duck meat is useful for people with poor eyesight.

Duck meat is quite fatty, so duck is not suitable for dietary nutrition. In addition, people prone to allergic diseases should take into account that duck meat can provoke allergies.

Contraindications for use

Duck is considered fatty meat and contains a large number of cholesterol, so it is not used in dietary nutrition and is not recommended to be eaten by patients suffering from obesity, diabetes mellitus, as well as children under the age of 3 years.

In addition, duck contains refractory fats and is relatively poorly digested by the gastrointestinal tract, so it is not recommended for patients with diseases of the liver, pancreas, and stomach.

Duck meat in children's diet

Duck can be introduced into the diet of a child no earlier than when he reaches three years of age, because. it hard to digest. This will create a lot of stress on the stomach and pancreas, which are not yet fully developed at an early age.

Preparation and consistency

Duck can be fried, boiled, stewed, baked whole or in parts. A very popular festive dish is duck with apples baked in the oven or oven. Domestic ducks are quite fatty and when cooked, a lot of fat is rendered from them. Therefore, it is better to cut off some of the fat in advance. Sometimes the smell of a duck can be quite sharp, then when cooking, you need to put halves or quarters of fragrant apples into it.

Duck Recipes for Kids

stuffed duck

Ingredients:

• Duck (2-2.5 kg) - 1 pc.
• Potato - 1 kg
• Butter - 100 g
• Mushrooms (champignons) - 400 g
• greens - 100 g
• Garlic - to taste
• Vegetable oil - 50 ml.
• Salt, pepper - to taste

Cooking

1. We pre-wash the duck, gut it (if required), rub the inside with salt and black pepper and leave to marinate for 15-30 minutes.
2. Boil potatoes, drain, add chopped herbs and garlic.
3. Cut the mushrooms and fry them in butter until golden brown, then mix with boiled potatoes and mix.
4. We wash the pickled duck and rub again with salt and pepper, and put the potato-mushroom mass inside.
5. We sew the duck with a large needle, grease it with vegetable oil on top and put it on a baking sheet in a preheated oven at 180-200 degrees for 1.5-2 hours.
6. When serving - put the duck on a dish, cut and remove the threads on the seam,
7. decorate with greens.

Duck breast in honey with cherry sauce

Ingredients:

• Duck breast - 4 pcs.
• Honey - 4 tablespoons
• Cinnamon - on the tip of a knife
• Salt - to taste
• Nutmeg - on the tip of a knife
• For sauce:
• Canned cherries - 4 tbsp. l.
• Starch - 1.5 tsp

Cooking:

1. Rinse the duck breasts thoroughly, make small cuts. Then salt a little, brush with cinnamon, nutmeg and honey, leave to marinate for at least 2 hours.
2. After 2-3 hours, you need to drain the juice that has appeared.
3. Put the breasts on a baking sheet and put in a preheated oven to 200 degrees for 30 minutes.
4. At this time, you need to cook cherry sauce.
5. Add the drained marinade from the breasts to the canned cherries and boil for 2-3 minutes, then add the starch and the sauce is ready.
6. Put the finished duck on a plate and pour over the sauce.

Monastic duck

Ingredients:

• Duck - 1 pc.
• Rice - 2 tbsp.
• Onion - 2 pcs.
• Vegetable oil - 2 tbsp. l.
• Duck broth - 4 tbsp.
• Salt, pepper - to taste

Cooking:

1. Rinse the duck and boil until tender in salted water.
2. Dry rice fry in vegetable oil until golden brown and put in a baking dish with high sides and lightly salt.
3. Finely chop the onion and fry until golden brown and place on a baking sheet on top of the rice.
4. cut the duck into pieces and put on the onion.
5. Pour all the duck broth, salt and pepper.
6. Bake in the oven at 200 degrees for about 25-30 minutes until all the liquid is absorbed.
7. Put the finished duck with rice on plates and enjoy the taste.

Bon appetit!

Breeding domestic ducks is becoming more and more popular with farmers. We already know that their meat and eggs are quite healthy. There are many types of ducks, including broiler ducks, however, when reading information about each of them, you can often come across the word "drake". Who is this? What does this bird look like?

The drake is a male duck. Let's consider it in more detail.

We already know that duck and drake are birds of a large family of waterfowl, which includes about 150 species. The bird of this family has a flattened beak, waterproof, thanks to the coccygeal gland, plumage.

The oil gland secretes fat with which the bird lubricates its feather. If for some reason the bird does not swim, then the feathers will become dirty, which will interfere with normal flight. All ducks love to splash in the water.

Drake care features: choice of bird

The drake, like the duck, feeds mainly on plant foods, such as plankton. At home, birds are fed with finely chopped greens and various mashes with the addition of boiled eggs or crushed shells. Drakes, like ducks, are picky about food.

There are many types of drakes, each of which has its own color characteristics. Since the drake is a male, it is larger than the female. In addition, since he does not have to incubate eggs, nature has not endowed him with camouflage plumage, the drake is bright, beautiful bird, which is reflected in various kinds of photos, which are many on the Internet.

To choose a suitable duckling, you need:

• make sure before buying that each chick you like is healthy (a healthy baby drake is active, noisy and quacks cheerfully. It is important to pay attention to the plumage on the ass: it must be clean and dry, otherwise dirt may indicate problems with the intestines, infection );
• find out from the seller whether there is a certificate, whether the conditions for keeping ducks meet all the requirements;
• buy week-old individuals, since by this age the ducklings have already grown strong enough.

Before purchasing drakes, it is important to consider the conditions for transporting birds and prepare a room for their maintenance. There should be an optimal temperature and lighting. It must be clean, the health of ducks depends on it.

bird breeding

If the goal is to mate and breed at home, then it is better to buy adults, choosing them just as carefully before that. As a rule, a breeding herd is first selected for breeding.

How many females should be left for one drake? As a rule, 6 females are left. At the same time, it is important not to forget to follow the sexual instinct of males (whether the drake is ready to trample the duck). It is very important that this happens during the warm season, as it is easier to breed healthy offspring at this time. It is very important that the selected candidates are of approximately the same age and weight category.

More big role the selection of the female plays. She must be energetic, mobile with a strong skeleton. In this case, you need to pay attention to the fact that each species has its own mating characteristics.

So that the drake does not trample on the duck already sitting on the eggs, it must be resettled in another pen. A corral is an adapted, isolated room for living. How can a drake harm its own cubs? He starts chasing them, throwing them up. Often, the male will kill his cub if the necessary measures are not taken.

Chick care

The duck is raising the cub. She takes care of him, protects him. The kid calls his mother, trusts her. The male, as a rule, does not take part in the upbringing of the cub. He rests, and during sexual readiness he is placed with other females.

It is very important that each chick lives in comfortable conditions indoors, nutrition should be provided with a complete balanced diet. It is very important for the duckling to choose the right lighting. For this, as a rule, lamps of 75 W are used, more powerful is not needed.

We must not forget to monitor the health of each cub, carry out disinfection in time, pay attention to the fact that the birds always have fresh and clean drinking water, properly introduce complementary foods, monitor the temperature in the room. If there are doubts about the health of birds, it is better to call a veterinarian.

If you fulfill all these simple conditions, then success in breeding ducks and drakes is guaranteed, in case of doubt, you can consult with those who have previously bred birds.

Let's sum up a little: a male duck is called a drake, and caring for him differs little from what a female needs.

Hydra is everywhere, in telegram, in Tor, in the center of the web.

The spam you've been waiting for: amphetamine, spice, hashish, purest cocaine, heroin, lsd - everything is available on the Hydra's official website.

Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Astrakhan, Astana, Kyiv, Minsk, all of Russia.

Hydra Instant Stores are safe stores in the Tor, working on the principle of bookmarks and digs in any city.

Cladmen lay the treasure, you get geolocation and go dig for goodies.

Vacancies for cladmen are open, all reviews are positive. Fraudulent stores are blocked, if you have been deceived, then write to the administration, we will resolve this issue.

How to bypass

The most common way to bypass blocking is VPN and Tor browser.

The government and Roskomnadzor (Roskompozor) are trying in every possible way to prevent the sale of juicy cones and varietal marijuana. Stores require reliable sources to bypass blocking to function properly.

How much is the penalty for drug use? - not much, if you use the Tor anonymous network correctly and look for bookmarks correctly.

There are various rumors about reviews of instant stores, that the site does not work, that the stores are a scam, the Hydra Cop store - all these are rumors that Roskomnadzor bots started.

The exchange of bitcoins from qiwi and back is available on the store's website in the exchangers section. Anonymous cryptocurrency provides additional anonymity when shopping.

For a homestead or for sale, breeding ducks is quite a profitable business. They produce three types of main products: meat, eggs, fluff, as well as an additional one - litter.

In order to start a business, you need to purchase eggs or chicks. You can constantly buy the latter, or you can bring them out on your own in your backyard. A duckling is called a duckling.

It is characterized by good viability, precocity and unpretentiousness.

Popular breeds for breeding

• musky;
• Beijing;
• black white-breasted;
• clay;
• cayuga (coral);
• mirror;
• white alley;
• gray Ukrainian.

If a farmer has purchased eggs, he will need a hen(s) or an incubator. It is very convenient for those who plan to breed poultry for meat on a medium or large scale. The best for incubation will be eggs that have lain after laying for no more than 10 days, even in shape, of medium size for this breed.

How to hatch a chick from hatching to slaughter

The duration of the incubation period is 27-28 days. The time interval of approximately one day before hatching is called pecking. The duck chick at this time tries to break through the shell with its beak. It is very important to be close to the ducklings when they are born, as they hatch wet and the slightest draft becomes fatal to them. Duck babies need to be dried artificially or given to a mother hen.

It can be under an adult bird - a mother hen - or separately. Of course, the first method is better, but the hatchery duck chick is no worse in terms of productive qualities. It is only necessary to take into account some subtleties:

• the poultry house must have constant temperature and humidity, although ducks and waterfowl, but dampness in the house should not be. The air temperature until the 6th day is 22-28 ° C, after that - 16-18. Bedding for ducklings should be dry and warm, use straw, peat, sawdust.
• A duck chick, like any other poultry, is extremely sensitive to hypothermia. It is necessary to use special drinkers for ducklings so that they do not get wet.
• Accustoming to water is carried out later than for a brood reared under a brood hen: usually from 18-25 days.
• It is necessary to calculate the size of the room and not place a large number of chicks together: ducks do not tolerate crowding. The norm is 7-8 heads per square meter.

Slaughter for meat is carried out in two months, the weight of the young is 2200-2500 g. After two months, the bird begins to molt, the ducks lose weight, the weight during slaughter will be higher, but the meat yield will be less.

feeding ducklings

Duck babies are quite voracious, you need to put food in the feeders after 3-4 hours. Their diet consists of grain mash, cereals (oatmeal, millet, barley) with the addition of milk, cottage cheese, vegetables, green grass. A mineral supplement in the form of crushed shells, chalk, and from three weeks - salt - is required. For ducklings of the first days of life, a finely chopped boiled egg is added.

Determination of the sex of ducklings

In order to find out what gender the duck chick is, you need to look into the cloaca; a small tubercle is visible in the drake in its lower section. In ducks, sex can be distinguished almost immediately after birth. In some breeds, females and males differ in color.