The cruel cost of eating Duck meat 

The duck meat industry is identical to the chicken meat industry. The Australian industry produces over 8 million ducks (18,000 tonnes of duck meat) annually. As always the emphasis is on money. As with chickens, most ducks raised for meat in Australia live in crowded and filthy conditions in factory farms. 

Ducks are aquatic animals. Normally ducks spend much of their life on the water and have naturally weak leg joints. In intensive farms, the ducks are given no access to water for them to behave naturally. They are forced to use their legs for the short 7 weeks of their life before slaughter. This causes frequent lameness, dislocation and broken bones amongst ducks on farms. The slippery build-up of urine and faeces on the floor of factory farms increases injuries.

  The lack of available water also prevents ducks from being able to clean themselves properly, leaving them vulnerable to heat stress, infection and a disease called ‘crusty eye’ which can leave them blind. To be healthy and happy ducks require access to water. 

Deprived of water which is a natural part of their environment they suffer a lack of a vital welfare requirement. Because the sheds are not being cleaned for the entire time, the ducks are growing, and infections, ammonia burns, lung and respiratory problems and footpad lesions are debilitatingly prolific. 

A common infection ducks suffer from in factory farms is a blood disorder called anatipestifer disease. Contraction of this disease causes suffering from diarrhoea, tremors, trouble breathing, paralysis, convulsions and death. Most flocks sustain an average of 5% — 30% of birds which will die from the disease, and in some instances, up to 75% of birds may die. The cramped and dirty conditions of sheds on many duck farms provide the ideal environment for this disease to spread.

The very rapid weight gain of the selectively bred ducks in order to be profitable for the market causes immense pressure on their hearts, and lungs, and causes painful leg joints, dislocations and fractures. Ascites are a condition that causes high blood pressure, suffocation of their own body fluids, and even sudden death.  Approaching their full weight, ducks have considerable difficulty standing up and walking to food and drinking water. These loosely called ‘side-effects’ are the result of selectively breeding animals to grow unnaturally fast.

Further to these miseries, debeaking ducks is still legal in Australia. This process entails cutting off the tips of their beaks with a hot blade with no pain relief. This is to prevent pecking behaviour that is the outcome of severe stress because of crowded conditions. Depending on where the mutilating cut is on the beak, instances of lifelong pain can result. 

All up, the usual prevails, profit from pain is the capitalistic way. Meat eaters must be catered for regardless of kinder more sustainable ways.