Duck Duck Go Jobs Ireland
Sakhile Pichardo
Founded in 1962, Silver Hill Duck is a fully integrated premium Duck Producer. All aspects of our duck production are owned and controlled by Silver Hill Duck, from breeding, egg production, hatching and selection, to processing, cooking and packaging.
Our distinctive hybrid duck is the secret to our success and is a breed that is exclusive to Silver Hill Duck. It has been continually developed over the years, to produce a duck that is full of flavour, succulent, tender and consistent in its quality.
Established in 1962 in Emyvale Co. Monaghan to this day all of our duck is produced here. Silver Hill Duck have always seeked ways to ensure that our business can have a meaningful, positive impact on the communities we operate in. We are building a business that will span generations; this infuses every aspect of our operations, from sustainable farming methods to employee development and animal welfare.
We are passionate about the quality of our Duck and feel privileged to be able to call our duck, the best tasting duck in the world. Knowing that we bring families around the world together to share the delicious taste of the Silver Hill Duck is an honour. Product quality and safety is our priority at Silver Hill Duck. Our supreme quality is world renowned and the cornerstone of our business. We firmly believe in the integrity of our products and operations to produce products that our customers trust us to deliver.
Silver Hill Duck first commenced operations in Emyvale in 1962, starting with just six ducks. Since then, it has developed its own unique duck breed, supplying huge volumes of duck to international markets.
The system will ensure that all water used in duck production in Emyvale is recycled, cleaned and dispersed in an environmentally sustainable manner, with no negative impact on any local water courses or any adverse impact on the local environment.
In addition, Silver Hill Duck says its expansion will create significant direct and indirect employment during construction and longer term through the expansion of its contract grower model that offers farmers, both north and south of the border, the opportunity to generate income from duck rearing.
We've slightly reworked our fit on the Union Work Pants. The classic slim-to-straight-fit feels great for a work pant like these, with the slight taper below the knee. We'd say the waist on these run true-to-size. However, if you have any question on what size to order, please reach out to us before placing your order.
When your waxed canvas goods are due for a cleaning, use cold water and a mild soap. We use specific waxed canvas care products for keeping care of our Rambler Jacket. Head over to our "How To Care For Waxed Canvas" page for more information on this.
At the end of the day, our goods are meant to be worn in, not out. With the correct care, we want our customers to be able to treat their gear with the tough love it was intended to take. You can also take a look at our Wash & Care Guide to keep your goods performing for a lifetime.
We offer FREE economy shipping on all contiguous U.S. orders $99+. We also provide 30-day FREE exchanges on all online orders in the contiguous U.S. Please read our returns policy on our FAQ page for more details.
All sale items are final.
you may have heard us mention duck canvas before, or maybe even have one of our past pieces. we've used cotton duck, like our Union Work Pants or Mechanic Jacket, for all sorts of daily trades. changing oil on bikes. camping. nailing up james hardie lap siding on the house. sanding fiberglass. you name it. cotton duck is so damn versatile. and it truly breaks in like a dream fabric. one of our favorites by far.
we all need pants, some of us need pants that can actually take a beating. That's where the Union Work Pant comes in. Drag them behind a car, take a ride to Baja in them, do whatever, all we know is that these can handle real abuse.
We kind of stumbled into ducks. After a couple years of raising meat chickens, we decided in 2014 to add a batch of meat ducks to the mix. We did a few, kind of feeling our way along, then did a few more the next year. Then in 2016 it became apparent that we seemed to be the only direct-marketing farmers locally who were raising ducks on any level, and seeing the increasing demand for duck meat we decided to throw caution to the wind and go in at a larger scale. Larger is relative, of course, but going from 60 ducks per year to nearly 600 is a fair leap. Along the way we have done some things well and some things poorly, have read and researched and read and researched some more, have processed some beautiful ducks and some so full of pinfeathers as to render them unsalable, and have eaten our fair share of mistakes. And we have, ultimately, fine-tuned our production system to better fit with our own interests, the abilities of our farm, and the limits of our time and sanity.
Ducks offer a wonderful option for the small-scale poultry keeper. They are hardy, fast-growing, present a ready market, and are much less subject to price-conscious shoppers than staple meats like chicken or beef. And chefs adore them. Ducks are good foragers, easy to herd (try that with chickens), producers of copious amounts of fertilizing manure, and make nice pond ornaments (try that with chickens!).
You would be hard pressed to choose a better breed than the Pekin for any scale of commercial duck production. As a farmer that takes pride in raising slow-growing heritage breeds of chickens and turkeys, as well as guinea fowl and geese, I find that the idea of raising fast-growing Pekin ducks is sometimes a bit of a bitter pill to swallow. I console myself with the fact that even at the turn of the 20th century the Pekin was known as a bird that grows to butcher weight considerably more quickly than any other breed of domestic duck then available, typically being marketed by 10 weeks of age; its fast growth is not the result of the same intensive, industrialized breeding that culminated in the Cornish-Rock Cross chicken or the Broad Breasted turkey. There are multiple options for acquiring Pekins. Probably all hatcheries that handle waterfowl will have standard Pekins, and many will have a jumbo version. We raise what is known as the Grimaud Hybrid Pekin, available from Metzer Farms in California. It is not actually a hybrid, per se, but a cross of two distinct genetic lines of Pekin to create a particularly productive meat duck. It is my understanding that the differences between the Grimaud Hybrid Pekin and the Standard Pekin are relatively minor: the former is more appealing to and slightly more suited for commercial farmers, the latter for backyard growers, but for all intents and purposes they are more or less interchangeable. (The Jumbo Pekin is used primarily for exhibition purposes. They mature at larger weights, but grow more slowly.)
We have tried the Rouen, because it is a large breed, but we have been mostly dissatisfied. They are beautiful birds, with plumage like a wild mallard, and they were really quite tasty, but their rate of growth is particularly slow. Even at 16 weeks they were undersized for our market. Add to this a high feed conversion ratio, and you have a duck that is perhaps not so well suited to commercial meat production, though I am speaking from only limited experience. I have in mind raising a trial batch of Rouens and slaughtering them at 8-9 weeks, when they should pluck cleanly, and marketing them as a single-serving whole duck, the quacking version of Cornish game hens. Whether this would be a financially viable option, I cannot yet say.
There are, of course, plenty of other breeds, probably each with its own group of devotees. By no means should you assume that the others are not worth raising, or are not economically viable for the small farm, but the Pekin and Muscovy certainly each offers a great starting point. (I write this, too, from an American perspective; in the United Kingdom the Aylesbury is the breed of choice, with qualities very similar to those of the Pekin, though they are not commonly available in the United States.)
We start our ducks with a ration relatively high in protein, about 20%, for the first two weeks. The protein content is then reduced to 18% for the next two weeks, then reduced again to 16% for weeks 5-7. We achieve this by taking a base ration of mixed grains (corn, wheat, oats, and black oil sunflower seeds) and adding in varying quantities of ground roasted soybeans (or soybean meal), fish meal, and a mineral mix, depending on the protein content we need, though one could also use a prepared higher-protein ration and cut it as needed with the addition of corn and/or other grains. The ducks are then fattened on only grain (corn, or corn mixed with small grains) until slaughter.
Sometimes we give our ducks free range of the pasture until fattening time, when we confine them to their shelters, while at other times we allow them free range for the entire time. The fattening period lasts from about 7-10 days (Pekins) to two weeks (Muscovies). The idea behind the fattening stage is that these ducks have spent their lives up to this point ranging and foraging and growing in frame, and the fattening period is intended to plump them up prior to marketing. When they are contained they expend less energy roaming around, and thus more of their food energy goes toward adding muscle and fat, at least in theory, though we have never done a side-by-side comparison to see what effect confinement does or does not have.
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