Yesterday as many of you will be aware there was a huge collaboration between rescues, charities and the public to help save over 2,000 ducks from Norton Field farm in Essex who had been forced into a situation where they either allow the company Cherry Valley to take back the ducks and they would slaughter them for meat or to give them away to people who rehome them.
I think in such situations especially with many of us in animal welfare and against the eating of animals it is easy to believe the worst of the duck farmers and maybe not see the whole situation and possiibly place blame where it should not be, or maybe not fairly on all shoulders involved that led to these ducks being rehomed.
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The farm have sent us today a full explanation of what led up to yesterdays rehoming/rescue, this is as follows:
TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR DUCKS WELFARE
It is with great regret that today we have to make the hard decision to de-populate our flock of CHERRY VALLEY DUCKS.
We moved from free-range hen egg production in June 2013 to what we hoped would be a more profitable enterprise, duck egg production.
We actually have more customers than we have egg.
So one would think it was the right move?
However we have been badly let down by Cherry Valley, based in Market Rasen.
We ordered our day old female ducks and took delivery in early June 2013, rearing them and looking after them until they came in to lay in mid November.
In early New Year we noticed a few issues, we had some drakes in the flock. While not totally unusual, over the coming weeks and months as the ducks became more mature we thought we had a few hundred.
This was pointed out to Cherry Valley who insisted to our feed supplier that we only had “ a 100% female flock”
Cherry Valley has stated on many occasions that 1% plus is normal.
In our case, 420-450 in a flock of 4000,11% plus.
That is not normal!
As we had our setup arranged for egg production it has caused a larger than expected mortality, by the drakes, over mating females and killing them.
This is not what we expected!
The costs of keeping and feeding the male population has led us into a very heavy loss making exercise and more mortality in the females.
As pointed out by Cherry Valley today in it’s terms and conditions and invoice and covering email, the order email states “Please find attached proforma invoice for the 4000 female dayolds for collection on Tuesday 4th June”
Our business plan and model to expand has been destroyed.
Cherry Valley has already admitted in emails that we had “11% drakes” and mistakes were made at the hatchery.
While Cherry Valley did remove some drakes at our request they have not kept their promises of correcting the mistake and compensating us for our losses.
We can no longer get feed deliveries from our supplier as cash flow does not permit and our credit limit is exceeded.
Cherry Valley has made false promises to address the situation.
Today I am asking the RSPCA and Freedom Food for help to remove the flock, as we cannot afford to keep them and feed has run out.
Cherry Valley have given the impression both directly to us and through their solicitor that it would be addressing the matter with urgency, but urgency for them as communicated by their solicitor is in the coming week or so.
The welfare of the birds is paramount and they cannot wait that long. In my opinion Cherry Valley should be helping us out of this situation that their mistakes created.
Not only has this created major welfare issues, our staff will be made redundant, both full-time and part-time.
It was planned over the next 2-3 years to expand the operation up to 30-40 thousand ducks and also egg processing on site, creating between 20-30 full and part-time jobs.
This cannot happen because of the problems we are facing.
I would like to thank both customers and staff for their support over the last 12 months.
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So, it would appear that the Essex farm was infact given by their distributor an excess amount of males that infact inturn meant the death of many females. No refund was given by Cherry Valley to the farmer regardless that they had to stump the cost to feed and care for the drakes as well as the female ducks.
From a welfare point of view, AAFA are not really interested in the financial aspect of all this but we are VERY MUCH interested in the needless killing of female ducks because the percentage of males to females meant that the females were literally being raped by many ducks and the consequences of this led to many being dying from internal damage as well as te rough treatment of these females by the drakes during the raping of them.
Whether you agree or do not agree with the use of animals/birds to make profit, Action Aid are questioning the responsibility of the the distributor in this matter. Surely they have duty of care, a responsibility to ensure that the female to male ratio is not in excess as appears to be in this case.
Surely Cherry Valley rather than using killing the Drakes as an answer is NOT the answer. What of the farmer in this matter, from what we have been told the ducks were given top priority be it in their general welfare, housing conditions and so on. Yet here is the farmer left with a huge food bill and having to deal with the lifeless bodies of females torn to shreds by the drakes because the male to female ration was in excess that normal.
The farm itself was offered by Cherry Valley who appears to be at the root of all this, for them to clear the ducks left and send them to slaughter. The Name Cherry Valley certainly conjurs up a wholesome image, it appears to be the opposite is true if there answer to solving a mess they caused, the life of ducks wasted that they caused is to offer to take the ducks they supplied and charged the farmer for , to take the ducks and slaughter them!!!!
Business is a murky world at best, but is even worse when animals/birds lives are being affected/put at risk because of mistakes the humans involved have made.
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Yesterday we were told that the farm was giving away ducks to people/individuals who came to claim a free duck not to care for and rehome but to eat. However it has been confirmed that a number of vans turned up from restaurants to claim as many ducks as they could to serve in to their customers. These persons were infact turned away.
After speaking with the farm today it was confirmed that there are only a few ducks left, and these are very much pets to the farmer and would be kept by them the farm as pets.
We are sure that we are all very happy that so any lives were saved and to be fair, the farmer could have accepted the offer by Cherry Valley and had all the ducks taken away to slaughter but in their favor they did infact concern themselves with the welfare of the ducks and choose to offer them to people NOT wanting to kill or exploit the birds but infact to offer them homes where they would live the rest of their lives without fear of electrocution or there necks being broken.
So many came from over the UK to help, rescues, sanctuaries, charities and individuals. A huge effort to help the ducks and give them a safe future.
There have been many casualties here, the ducks that were killed by the drakes and the farmer who now has huge feed debts to cover.....At least the farm despite the worries of debt that it would appear a large corporation put on their shoulders, at least they can be proud to know that because of thier choice to find the ducks hoes rather than let them go for slaughter they did in fact act with respect to these birds.
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Leaflet the farm was giving and sending to people who they wanted to REHOME NOT to KILL their ducks.
THE DUCK GIVEAWAY
YOU ARE WELCOME TO COLLECT AS MANY AS YOU CAN CARE FOR.
DUCKS NEED ACCESS TO CLEAR WATER BUT DON’T HAVE TO HAVE A POND.
A SPLASH POOL WILL DO.
A DUCK COOP, AT NIGHT OR SHED ETC.
YOU NEED TO FEED WITH DUCK LAYER PELLET THIS CAN BE BOUGHT AT ANY GOOD COUNTRY STORE COST £10-12 PER 20KG SACK.
NORTON FIELD FARM
NORTON LANE
NORTON MANDEVILLE
INGATESTONE
CM40LN
WE ARE JUST OFF THE A414 BETWEEN ONGAR & CHELMSFORD.
LANDMARK IS THE CAFÉ
YELLOW SIGNS FOR THIS ON THE HEDGEROW ON A414
COME AROUND TO THE CAFÉ; TURN FIRST LEFT BY JOHN MATTEWS PLANT HIRE.
GO ALONG FOR ABOUT 200 YARDS
TURN FIRST LEFT INTO NORTON LANE WHITE COTTAGES ON CORNER.
WE ARE ABOT HALF A MILE DOWN.
WE ARE IN A POSITION THAT THE WELFARE IS MOST IMPORTANT THAT IS WHY WE ARE GIVING THEM AWAY.
HOWEVER WE DO HAVE A LARGE FEED BILL TO SETTLE AND ANY DONATIONS TO WARDS THAT WILL BE GRATFULLY RECEIVED.
IAN & JULIE AND ALL OUR STAFF.