Soge Sanden, Muneng become 'duck villages'

Soge Sanden, Muneng become 'duck villages'

Slamet Susanto, The Jakarta Post/Bantul, Yogyakarta

"Quack! Quack! Quack! Quack!" That is the sound one will almost certainly hear every time they pass a village on the coastal area of Samas Beach in Bantul regency, Yogyakarta, especially in the hamlets of Soge Sanden and Muneng in Srigading village, some 30 kilometers south of the city.

For the last two years the two hamlets have become "duck villages", where hundreds of families breed ducks for their eggs. With some 30,000 estimated ducks bred there, the hamlets of some 700 families can produce some 15,000 to 20,000 duck eggs a day, making them significant production centers.

Agus Triyanto, a duck breeder, told The Jakarta Post that the business emerged accidentally in the village, thanks to a trial program sponsored by Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University in 2001 to breed ducks on the village beach in coops, which local villagers perceived as strange.

"It was not the way we local villagers used to breed ducks," Agus said.

The program was initially carried out to produce duck eggs of better quality, ones that contained a higher level of protein. That was expected because the ducks were bred on the beach, in coops. They benefited from additional nutrition from the beach, such as small fish and shrimp, which contain a high level of protein, when they were released from their coops during the day.

Although the trial reportedly was a success, meaning that it did produce duck eggs of better quality that commanded a higher price, the project was not continued. The sponsored group of breeders that previously reared ducks on the beach are no longer there.

"What impressed us the most was the way they bred the ducks in coops, just like chickens. That was something that locals had never done before," said Agus of Soge Sanden.

Locals, according to Agus, had not used coops to breed ducks before. Instead, they just left them in an open area, sometimes in their yards, and erected a fence to prevent them from escaping.

Inspired by the program, however, some villagers began to try breeding ducks in coops. They made use of the trial program as their "information post", where they asked many things about how to do it properly.

"I have no idea who started it initially, but more and more people, including myself, started breeding ducks in coops, so now almost every family here has ducks at their homes," said Agus, who has about 600 ducks.

Sukirman, 43, another duck breeder, said that to breed some 100 ducks he needed a five meter by 10 meter plot of land. A plaited bamboo fence or net was placed around the edge of the site to secure it. A semipermanent roofed building some two-and-a half meters by four meters was also built in the middle of the site for the ducks to take shelter in or sleep at night.

To build it, he needed about 100 pieces of bamboos that cost him some Rp 2,500 each. He also needed Rp 300,000 to pay a handyman to build the coops.

"A coop like that can last for over two years," Sukirman said.

To breed the ducks, he needs an average of four kilograms of kerak (rice leftovers), which he normally buys for Rp 900 per kilogram, six kilograms of bekatul (rice siftings) and two kilograms of what is known locally as sentrat.

To maintain the productivity of the ducks, they are also given a high-protein supplement, which is usually done once a week by feeding the ducks with teri (tiny marine fish) or snails. For this, he does not need extra money because he can find such fish at nearby fishing villages or snails in rice fields.

"As teri is mostly worthless and cannot be sold in the market, the fishermen usually just dispose of it. As for snails, there are many in the rice fields here," Sukirman said.

For ducklings to be bred for eggs, local breeders usually obtain them in two ways. They can either purchase ducklings from vendors or hatch some of eggs on their own.

After being bred for some five-and-a-half months, a duck usually starts producing eggs. To breed a duck until it produces eggs, a breeder usually spends some Rp 12,500, which also covers the cost of the ducklings and their food.

Some, however, prefer to buy egg-laying ducks, which are normally sold at about Rp 27,500 each. Their productivity for the first four months in the breeding coops is usually between 60 percent and 70 percent of normal.

During the second four months, however, the ducks' productivity can be up to 90 percent. Then it goes down again to between 60 percent and 70 percent during the third four-month period due to molting. For the next eight months, egg productivity will rise again up to 90 percent.

"After that, it's better to exchange them with for other egg- layers, or breed new ducklings, as productivity will continue to decrease until they can no longer lay eggs," said Sukirman, adding that ducks like that past their prime were usually for Rp 7,500 each.

Sukirman's neighbor, Taryono, who has 170 ducks, said he produced 120 to 140 duck eggs per day. They are usually sold for Rp 550 to Rp 700 apiece, depending on the prevailing market price.

Taryono said he never had trouble selling the eggs, because almost every day egg brokers came to the village to buy eggs from the breeders. Taryono said he made a net profit of Rp 30,000 to Rp 40,000 per day from the business.

"That's good, because it means I can afford to pay my children's school fees."