March 17, 2004

Shortage Of Breeding Ducks As Vietnam Replenishes Poultry Flocks
 

Following the devastating impact of the bird flu outbreak on, Vietnamese authorities have stated their intention to replenish their depleted poultry flocks via imports from countries not affected by bird flu.

According to the Agriculture Department, a total of 216 poultry remain in Vietnam after mass deaths and culling. Out of this, there are approximately 1.9 million breeding fowls, including 850,000 white chickens, 600,000 coloured chickens and 450,000 ducks.

These breeding poultry can each year produce 70-75 million white chickens, 50-55 million coloured chickens and 40-45 million ducks.

Department officials said that basically the demand for breeding chickens can be met but there will likely be a shortage of 10-12 million breeding ducks.

It is anticipated that Vietnam will have to import 100,000 parent ducks to add to its breeding duck stock as well as 3,000-5,000 grandparent chickens and 100,000-150,000 parent chickens in replacement for the breeding chicken stocks which are no longer useful.

Dr. Nguyen Dang Vang, Director of the Animal Husbandry Institute, said his institute's eight breeding farms are able to supply farmers across the country with breeding poultry. He said, this year, these farms plan to sell 1.4 million breeding chickens, 146,000 breeding ducks, 600 breeding geese, 4,000 pairs of French breeding pigeons and 2,000 breeding ostriches.