Development and experiment on application effects of automatic drinking device for waterfowl

Abstract: A new automatic drinking device was designed according to the living habits of waterfowl (ducks), which was made with PVC pipes, floating balls, and other materials. The devices had better performances and advantages, such as more water area and deeper groove, auto-control of water amount by float ball to meet the needs of intensive rearing of waterfowl (ducks) comparing with the other three devices: nipple drinkers, ordinary water tanks, and the Plasson drinkers. To further observe the effects of the new automatic drinking devices on production performance in duck breeders, 18 684 SM3 cherry parent ducks were randomly allocated into four groups with three replicates, including new drinking devices (group one), nipple drinker (group two), ordinary water tank (group three), and the Plasson drinker (group four). Every replicate had 1 557 ducks (females 1,289; males 268).The purchase cost and depreciation cost of the four drinking devices, water consumption and production performance of ducks under the same feeding conditions were statistically analyzed from the ages of 25 weeks to 75 weeks. The results showed that the purchase cost of the drinking device in group one was 0.59￥ per duck, which was the lowest among the all of the groups (0.59￥ vs 1.25￥ or 0.69 ￥ or 2.27￥); and the depreciation cost of 0.13 ￥ per year in group one was the lowest among the all of the groups, too (0.13￥ vs 0.24￥ or 0.14￥ or 0.49￥). The water consumption per duck per day in group one was more than that in group two and in group four (1.72 kg±0.03 kg vs 1.18 kg±0.04 kg or 1.48 kg±0.03 kg), but less than that in group three (2.31 kg ± 0.08 kg). The survival rate, egg laying rate, egg average qualified rate, and egg average fertility rate in group one were all higher than those in other groups. In conclusion, the new drinking devices could be applied widely in the intensive rearing of waterfowls with the advantages of improving production performances of ducks, lower purchase and depreciation costs, and being easy to operate.