Fat Ducks

I did something today that I’ve wanted to do ever since I first tasted the delights of Foie Gras de Canard – visit a farm where the ducks for this French delicacy are raised. I wanted to see for myself what conditions the ducks were raised in and decide for myself whether I could morally eat Foie Gras – I was hoping so, because I love it! La Ferme aux Téoulets in Merville is a farm run by Francis and Natacha MASO who specialise in raising “fat” ducks and they held an open day today so we went along  to have a look at what goes on at one of these farms.

After a quick browse of the different stalls selling duck based products, coffee, chocolate, Belgian beers and jewellery (a strange mix for a farm open day!) and a look at the dogs (well-fed dogs judging by the number of duck heads and carcasses lying around the place), turkeys, geese and a donkey, we got down to serious business and entered the duck shed. At this point, I was starting to wonder where the ducks were because for a farm that specialises in ducks, the only ones I’d seen so far were in jars and I hadn’t heard a single “quack”.

The first room we entered was the abbatoir – I was immediately struck by the strong smell, which I can’t really describe, but it was apparent that death had occured in the room! I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue with the tour, but curiosity told me to pull myself together. Francis himself was the guide and he talked passionately about his job. He made it clear from the start that there is a big difference between what he does and what happens at farms who mass-produce duck for foie gras. So here we were in the abbatoir which consisted of a machine that you put the ducks in head first (I think the machine held four ducks) and they get the chop – there was a big bucket underneath to catch the discarded heads and all the blood.  Next they’re passed through a machine to remove the feathers and there you have  your duck ready for all kinds of culinary treats. Francis made it sound very quick anyway. But where were the ducks?  Still no quacks…

To my surprise, through a door just the other side of the abbatoir we finally got to see the ducks – about 80 of them. It was quite dark in there – the only light coming from a little bulb in the ceiling. It was covered in thick cobwebs, which Francis explained were a necessity – they don’t use any chemical products at the farm, so they need to spiders to keep the flies at bay instead of insectisides. The ducks were separated into 10 little pens – about 1m x 1.5m in size – each containing 8 ducks.  Any more than 8 per pen would encourage the spread of disease and they would have to fight for space and water resulting in the smaller ducks not getting enough water. Francis told us that on an industrial scale, the ducks are kept in cages where they can’t sit down and the cages are placed along a trough of water so they all share the same water. At the farm, there was one bucket of water per pen which again limits the spread of disease.

Next, on to the bit that puts people off eating foie gras – the force-feeding. Francis told us that he sometimes shows people how he force-feeds the ducks, but that he couldn’t today as they weren’t due to be fed until the evening. He explained that they force-feed them by hand with locally produced corn. The advantage of feeding them by hand is that you know when they are full so each duck gets just what they need depending on size. It takes him about an hour to feed 60 ducks – in mass production, the ducks in cages all get given the same amount of feed regardless of size (usually the small ones die, because they can’t handle the amount they are given) through a machine driven tube stuffed down their necks and it takes 2 seconds thus enabling them to feed 600 ducks in an hour. On the farm, they are fed like this twice a day – exactly every 12 hours – which gives the ducks the exact amount of time needed to properly digest the food before taking on board the next lot. They are force-fed at the farm for 28 days before slaughter. Needless to say,  the caged ducks get more feeds a day and are only force fed for 13 days before being killed.

Francis insists that his ducks are happy ducks and that they enjoy being fed. Their existance didn’t seem too happy to me, but then Francis told us some more about their lives prior to the pens and the compulsory dinners in the shed. His ducks come from a farm in Guzet-Neige (a ski resort in the Pyrénées), they are raised outdoors on the slopes of the mountains which makes them healthy ducks with strong legs. They live happily in the Pyrénées for the first 4 months of their lives (or until they reach 5kg in weight) and then they are taken to La Ferme aux Téoulets for a final month of fattening up which will take their weight up to 7.5kg and thanks to their strong legs, 98% of them are able to cope with the weight increase. The other 2% ’s legs can’t take the strain and spend their days sat down.

All in all, it was a really interesting visit. I would encourage anyone who can to visit the farm or a similar farm and see for themselves what happens to their food before it hits the plate. I will continue to eat and enjoy Foie Gras, but I’ll try very hard to make sure that it comes from Farms like La Ferme aux Téoulets.