Last East End duck farm hatching comeback
For the last 19 months, Aquebogue’s Crescent Duck Farm owner Doug Corwin has been rebuilding his flock that was decimated by an H5N1 outbreak back in January 2025.
After undergoing a quarantine, vigorous disinfection process, several rounds of testing and following the necessary USDA requirements for the facility, all while simultaneously salvaging and hatching a new generation of ducklings off-site, Mr. Corwin commenced full production at his Aquebogue farm this month.
According to the Suffolk County Department of Planning, “There were 90 duck farms located in the Towns of Brookhaven, Southampton and Riverhead in 1940.” And last year, the last one, Mr. Corwin’s operation, was shuttered.
“Now, I’m going to make money again,” the fourth-generation farmer told Times Review.
At the time of the outbreak, the farm’s operators had to humanely euthanize all of the live birds in the flock, which forced a lay-off of 55 employees out of his 72-member staff. Just a year ago, he only had 18 people on the payroll.
Today, Crescent Duck Farm’s workforce is back up to 62 employees, only 10 less than what the business started with, Mr. Corwin said. In the last two weeks, he has hired 39 workers, 37 of which were previously laid off.
“I thought that was pretty amazing,” he said. “I only had to hire two new people.”
Mr. Corwin originally planned to launch his full production this past June. However, this winter’s harsh conditions made food and fresh water sources for local fowl scarce, which made wild birds more susceptible to the airborne H5N1 virus and caused an uptick in bird flu cases.
Looking back, he said the decision to delay his plans by a few months ultimately was the right one.
As the farm prepares to enter a reintroduction phase to its clients and the local community, Mr. Corwin said he has not dropped his defenses against the persistent threat of avian flu. He continues to take precautions, such as implementing measures to make the farm “less wildlife friendly.”
“I purposely started our production at roughly 78% because I realized it would get 100% of my business back overnight, so instead of having 72 employees, I’ve got 62 employees right now,” Mr. Corwin said. “We made a lot of changes, we had a farm that was 95% bio secure, now I think we’ve got a farm that is 98% bio secure, so I’m pretty confident that we’re gonna push forward and do well.”
Back in February 2025, Crescent Duck Farm hatched a small 3,700 batch of ducklings from 15,000 saved and sanitized legacy genetic eggs from their facility — just enough to get the second generation going, Mr. Corwin said at the time.
