AGRICULTURAL NEWS - Duck meat is a high-value niche product in South Africa. KwaZulu-Natal farmer Vanessa Collocott supplies this market with certified free-range ducks, and has combined shrewd business sense with compassion in her high-risk enterprise.
Vanessa Collocott raises free-range Pekin ducks for meat on her 20ha smallholding, The Blue Orange Farm, in Curry’s Post, between Mooi River and Howick in KwaZulu-Natal.
Her government-certified, free-range duck production enterprise started with only 60 day-old Pekin ducklings back in 2012. She now farms just over 1 200 ducks at a time, divided into four age groups.
Every fortnight, 300 of her mature ducks are sent to an abattoir, where they slaughter out at about 2,3kg each. She then personally delivers or couriers the frozen carcasses to customers in the Midlands, northern Zululand, and even as far away as Cape Town.
Collocott says she went into duck farming because she wanted a high-turnover enterprise to supplement her husband’s income as a businessman in nearby Pietermaritzburg.
