farming/eggaid

Listen Up: Public Radio International “Living on Earth” segment on Lundberg’s Egg Aid 2009

Lundberg Family Farms is committed to maintaining healthy ecosystems, which improve the soil while protecting the air, water, and wild life.
Planting cover crops on our fields allows us to add nutrients and organic matter to our soils by incorporating them in the Spring. This green manure crop becomes a habitat for many species during the Winter and Spring.
Our fields provide valuable habitat for a variety of animals throughout the year. Migrating waterfowl inhabit flooded fields during the winter and nest in the cover crops in the spring.
Cover crops, such as purple vetch, provide an excellent habitat for duck nesting.
Each year, in preparation of spring planting, we can recover thousands of mallard duck eggs from the purple vetch prior to mowing the fields.
Egg Aid is a symbolic recovery of the eggs. It is a fun and educational opportunity for kids to learn about rice farming and how Lundberg works to preserve and maintain the habitat for all kinds of species.
The major work of the egg salvage is done by the volunteers of the District 10 Wild Duck Egg Salvage Program who go through the field before work begins and by the farm crew who stop their equipment during field work to collect any nests that were missed.
The eggs which are salvaged would have been destroyed in order to farm the field. The field is chopped very soon after eggs are collected to discourage ducks from re-nesting in the field and to make nests in areas that will not be disturbed.
The ducks, whose nests are collected in the vetch field, will most likely nest again this season in another location. Mallards in California will attempt to nest up to three times where there is food available.
Lundberg Family Farms has been working with District 10 Wild Duck Egg Salvage Program in rescuing duck eggs, since 1993. Over the years we have rescued over 24,000 ducklings.
The District 10 Wild Duck Egg Salvage Program rescues duck eggs from fields, takes them to a hatchery where they are incubated, cared for, banded and releases back into the wild.
Average incubation period for mallard eggs is 28 days.
95% of the eggs collected hatch.
The ducklings are banded and released back into the wild after 5 weeks.
On average 2,000 ducklings from eggs collected from Lundberg fields are released back into the wild by District 10 every year.
The recovery rate of naturally banded yearling mallards is nearly identical to the recovery rate of the released salvaged ducklings (6.5%). This indicates that the released birds are integrating into wild populations and surviving.

Lundberg Family Farms