Duck Farming in Coastal Area: Assessing Nutritional Status and Its Contribution to Egg Production

Abstract

The nutritional status of laying ducks is the balance between the supply of nutrients from the feedstuff consumed with the nutritional needs for maintenance and egg production. Therefore, the nutritional status can be measured through the level of egg production. This study was aimed to evaluate the nutritional status of laying ducks cultivated in coastal areas and its contribution to egg production. Using a survey method with a Dietary Assessment Approach onto 200 flocks of ducks and their breeders as a sample. Every week for 6 consecutive weeks, the farmers were interviewed about the amount and type of feed stuff that was given to their ducks. Sampling from each feedstuff was carried out to be analyzed in the laboratory for its nutritional content. The results of the analysis were used to calculate the amount and nutritional components consumed by the ducks, then compared with the nutritional requirements of laying ducks according to the Indonesian National Standard (INS). Nutritional status is considered Sufficient Status (SS) if the consumption of ducks from each nutritional component is the same as INS, and Insufficient Status (IS) if < INS. Daily egg production was recorded. To determine the contribution of nutritional status to egg production, the data were analyzed by regression. The results showed that 58.50% of samples were in SS and 41.50% IS. The regression results showed that the contribution of SS to egg production was 72.132% higher than the contribution of IS which was 49.91%. The IS ration contains a high rice brand while the portion of anchovies and abandoned fish is relatively low. The study concluded that the level of egg production was determined by nutritional status, increasing the nutritional status from IS to SS can be done by reducing the portion of bran and increasing the portion of anchovies and fish waste in ration.