SPCA advocates all ducks and geese should be reared in free-range systems, allowing easy access to an outdoor area with appropriate, well-maintained ground and vegetative cover, and suitable artificial and/or natural shelters that protect them from the elements and overhead predators. Ducks and geese should be provided continual access to a suitable bathing water source that is hygienically well maintained. Ducks and geese are semi-aquatic animals, and therefore have different behavioural needs compared to other farmed poultry species. Providing an open water source that they can immerse their full body in and perform natural water-related behaviours is important for their health and welfare.

Within housing, environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, ammonia and dust levels must be controlled, and good litter quality and proper ventilation must be maintained to ensure the comfort of the ducks and geese at all times. Ducks and geese must always have sufficient space to move freely, turn around completely and perform natural behaviours such as walking and social interactions. All farmed ducks and geese should be allowed to perform species-specific behaviours, such as bathing, wet preening, and the various body and feather movements that are part of the natural behavioural repertoire.

SPCA opposes bill and claw trimming of farmed ducks.

SPCA advocates that the poultry industry could do more to reduce the causes of injurious pecking and claw-induced injuries, without resorting to bill and claw trimming. Improvements may include reducing stocking densities, improving diet, duckling and gosling rearing methods, changing breed selection, adjusting light intensity and adding enrichment, in particular open water sources.

SPCA opposes the practice of using a feeding tube to feed ducks and geese to produce pâté de foie gras.

SPCA opposes the plucking of feathers from live ducks and geese for their down.

SPCA opposes the handling and catching of ducks and geese that causes harm or distress.

Ducks and geese should be handled humanely at all times and be caught efficiently and in a manner that causes minimum stress. Ducks and geese never be caught or carried by their legs or wings or inverted. Instead, they should be carried around the body and kept upright. SPCA advocates for the development and widespread application of more humane methods of handling ducks and geese across the industry.

SPCA advocates for research and investment into improved slaughter methods for ducks and geese.

SPCA advocates that all animals slaughtered for food should be killed in the most humane way possible. A humane slaughter method is one that leads to immediate death or uses stunning that renders an animal instantly and entirely insensible to pain before slaughter and until death. A humane slaughter method should be non-aversive (minimising pain and distress).

SPCA opposes electrical water bath stunning and live inversion for the slaughter of ducks and geese.

The commercial slaughter of poultry is generally carried out in purpose-built facilities with a very high throughput and automation. The most common slaughter method involves hanging conscious birds upside-down using leg shackles on a conveyor belt (known as inversion). The birds’ heads are then passed through an electrified water bath to render them unconscious before they are bled out to cause death.

Shackling and inversion induce negative affective states such as pain, fear and stress, which can lead to wing-flapping and struggling. Inversion is associated with injuries such as dislocations and fractures. In water bath stunners where multiple birds, or birds of different sizes, are stunned at once, the electrical current can be uneven, and ducks and geese can lift their heads out of the water leading to ineffective or no stunning and suffering of the animal.

SPCA calls for research into an alternative method of electrical stunning without conscious inversion, into mechanical methods, and the adoption of best-practice controlled atmosphere stunning.