Ducks are water birds with specific welfare needs that are rarely met in intensive farming. Access to bathing water is a key welfare requirement that remains controversial.
Farmed duck welfare raises distinctive concerns because the intensive production systems applied to ducks are particularly poorly matched to the animals' fundamental nature. Ducks evolved as water birds — their physiology, behaviour, and psychology are oriented around aquatic environments. The failure to provide access to open water in most intensive duck farming systems represents a systematic denial of one of the most strongly motivated behaviours in the species' repertoire. Research using preference and operant conditioning tests demonstrates that ducks place high value on bathing water access, choosing it over other resources. The argument that providing water creates hygiene problems is a management challenge, not a justification for indefinite welfare compromise. Progressive producers are demonstrating that water provision is commercially viable with appropriate management.