Bread and Shrimp Heads: The Secret to Harvesting Hundreds of Duck Eggs Daily

In North Jakarta’s Rorotan, discarded bread and shrimp heads from households and factories have become valuable feed resources for local duck farmers. About 30 duck farmers within the Rorotan Maju Bersama (RMB) group are using bread waste and shrimp heads to feed hundreds of their birds. RMB chair Mat Yasin (68) said the duck-feeding innovation using discarded bread and shrimp heads emerged after farmers conducted various experiments. ‘Since the year 2000, we’ve been trying this and that; which is good? This uses bread waste together with shrimp head waste,’ Yasin said when interviewed by Kompas.com on-site on Monday 2 March 2026. The shrimp heads are provided separately from the bread, as they supply protein. Yasin said the bread waste and shrimp-head feed is sufficiently effective at helping the farmers’ ducks grow well and lay eggs quickly. This is evident as Yasin can harvest a large number of duck eggs from his shed each day. Of the 700 ducks he raises, he can harvest hundreds of eggs daily. ‘Here, since we sell the eggs, there are about 700 ducks, so the eggs can be around 230 a day,’ Yasin said. Yasin noted that each duck egg is sold to a middleman for Rp 2,100 to Rp 2,400. Calculations suggest Yasin’s average daily income is around Rp 500,000, or about Rp 15 million a month. From that turnover, his profit is around Rp 7.5 million, with the rest spent on feed. He even has to travel out of town to source the bread waste for hundreds of his ducks. ‘Yes, it’s leftover bread. Sometimes I fetch bread as far as Subang, but the focus is in Kelapa Gading,’ Yasin added. In fact, the discarded bread is not free; the farmers buy it by the kilogram. Besides the difficulty in finding surplus bread, farmers also struggle to obtain shrimp heads to complete the ducks’ feed. Another farmer, Purba (60), also acknowledged that a major challenge of duck farming in Jakarta is securing feed stocks.