The main welfare challenges in commercial duck production and practical solutions for improving the lives of farmed Pekin and Muscovy ducks.
Duck welfare in commercial production represents one of the clearest mismatches between species-specific behavioral needs and production system design. Ducks are aquatic-adapted animals whose behavioral repertoire is built around water — bathing, preening, foraging, social display, and mating all require or strongly benefit from water access. Confining them without open water causes frustration of strongly motivated behaviors and has concrete health consequences including eye disease. Solutions range from minimal provision of water depth sufficient for eye immersion to full open-water access for bathing. Industry resistance centers on costs and litter management challenges from wet ducks, but these are manageable engineering problems rather than fundamental barriers to welfare improvement. Consumer and regulatory pressure are the primary drivers of change.