Daily Life in China                  

Chinese Duck Market:

   Roast duck is a favorite all over China.  Where do all those ducks come from to feed 1.3 billion cravers of roast duck?  There are lots of duck farmers all over China.  The average herd size is the amount of ducks below.  The farmer brings his ducks down the canals to other farmers fields.  The ducks wade through the paddies and other crop fields at will.  The crop farmers like it because the ducks eat many crop pests and fertilize their fields. 

   Like other crops, individual small family farms supply the ducks.  At market time the farmer slaughters the ducks and sends them to market. 

   The truck below went by me with a strange load.  It was the first such load I had seen so followed it back to Changde.  It was a load of ducks obviously going to market someplace.  My guess was to the main seller of roast duck in Changde so I followed it.  The place that sells roast duck is so popular it was franchised and there are two on the same block in Changde one door apart.  See below.

   The load ended up at one of the huge markets in Changde.  I had been to that market a number of times but never to the very back part which I thought was without activity.  In the back section there is a large complex of rental storage like units, 100's, one story, roll-up door, with a room or two in back.   Each one is for some animal, fish, crustacean or whatever.  (There was a large truck of crawfish being unloaded a few doors down).

   This bay was for ducks.  There's no refrigeration but the ducks will be cleaned, processed an distributed to retailers quickly.

The ducks are unloaded and washed.

They are then packed in trays for further processing inside.  

   The ducks are then sold in quantity at the huge market out front, that day and the next.  Most will go quickly to restaurants or to the roast duck franchise below which has a huge appetite for fresh duck.

The retail side.  This is the alley between the two franchise roast duck outlets in Changde.  The workers are preparing the ducks for roasting.

That's a basket of heads next to the lady in black.  Duck tongue is a favorite which I pass on.