duck owners...

**Missy** · 10-27-2005, 06:16 PM

can you tell me a little about the day to day care of your pet ducks? feeding, bedding, etc. Are yours indoors or strictly outdoor pets? What do you feed the ducklings? Any info would be helpful. Hey! post pics if you can! Breed info??

**nodmicks** · 10-27-2005, 06:28 PM

I currently have a peking and a muscovy. They are pretty easy to care for. . They eat a hormone free feed from the feed store mixed with dry cracked corn.
I give them A few pieces of bread at night by hand as a treat. Thanks to Valerie I found out they like potato peels. In the summer they eat lots of bugs so not much grain.
I have a dog house set up with heat lamps and a very secure gate. We use straw or hay for bedding.

**Valerie in WA** · 10-27-2005, 08:54 PM

I highly recommend any book by Dave Holderread. He's a breeder in Oregon and has good information on duck care.

Mine are strictly outdoor. Ducks do NOT have a sphincter, so they cannot be trained. If you bring them indoors, they will need a diaper.

Our back yard is not fenced so I have a 7ft x 13ft (by 6ft tall) chainlink dog run that they live in. If our yard was fenced, I would only put them in the pen at night. My pen has 1/2inch mesh (raccoons) around the bottom (just zip-tied over the chainlink), 1 inch chicken wire over the top (hawks) and a sloped tarp over the tarp (to provide shade and to keep our rare snow from accumulating on the chicken wire).

Inside the pen, they have two buckets of water and a place to lay eggs. I also have a lamp (14-16 hours of daylight are necessary for good egg production) hanging in there. The nesting box varies by season. For the warmer months, they use a plastic recycling tote, on it's side. In the cooler months, they have a wooden "2-room" box, which dh slapped together. Nesting boxes are lined with straw. A large bale costs only $7 and lasts forever. The other things in the pen are the feeders. I bought rabbit feeders and secured them to the chainlink. They hold: feed, grit (rocks that 'chew' a bird's food) and oyster shell (calcium supplement for laying hens).

I chose to use wall-mounted rabbit feeders because I move their pen every other morning to a fresh area of grass. Getting the feeders off the ground was a few less things to move. I rotate the pen thru 6 or 8 spots on the lawn, in a circular movement. This allows rain and sun to take care of the poo before they rotate back to that spot. The total area that is 'theirs' totals about 30 ft by 30 ft.

In the winter, I put the pen on the garden and throw down a bale of hay (about 4 inches thick). The pen stays in this spot for about 3 months. Every couple of days, I toss some more hay over the poopy areas. In the late winter, I turn the straw into the garden. After my first year of doing this, my worm count was absolutely astounding!

I guess you really only asked about daily care, but I'm not going to delete all that!

Daily, I go out, turn on the hose (or if it's very cold, I fill a bucket from the faucet), dump the water buckets, use 'jet' setting on the hose to clean the buckets and refill them. About once a week, I give them a quick scrub with a long-handled kitchen scrub brush which lives jammed into the chain link. While the buckets are refilling, I put the eggs in my special little basket.

That's my favorite part. I also toss a scoop of food into the feeder. About once a week, I refill the grit and oyster shell. Every other day, I move the pen. The whole process takes from 5 minutes to 10 minutes. If I did everything: moved the pen, scrubbed the buckets, and filled the supplements, I don't think it would even take 15 minutes.

Oh, and the food. I have largish rubbermaid tote with wheels at one end where I keep up to 50lbs of food and about 20lbs each of grit and oystershell. This tote has a curved lid which sheds rain, and it has actual latches which should deter anything up to a monkey!

The remainder stockpiled feed is in the house, although I could put it in the shed.

I have a thread over in the Natural living area which talks more about the table scraps that I give my ducks. It's titled "How to never waste a scrap of food" (or something really close to that). If I have a large amount of food to give, I just reduce the amount of 'feed' that I give them.

Babies need somewhat different care. Again, I refer you to a book, but they need different feed and they need a heat lamp 24 hours a day in the begining.

I don't consider my ducks pets, I consider them livestock. Which made Cinderella's injured foot just a little more nerve-wracking. I had no intention of obtaining veterinary care for a $6 duck, but nor would I have let her suffer if it wasn't healing.

I estimate my ongoing costs for organic eggs to be 96c/dozen. If I factor in the cost of the dog run (over $200) over the first two years of egg production, my cost increases to somewhere around $2.75/dozen. But after the second year, I'll be down to just feed. A 50lb bag of organic feed costs me $15 and lasts for 3 months, during which I get 180-270 eggs.

My ducks are Indian Runners. They and Khaki Campbells are usually the best layers. Pekins are considered a meat bird, but Michelle eats her eggs. Again the Dave Holderread books can go over all the breeds and their ins and outs.

Let me know if you have more questions.

**Missy** · 10-28-2005, 08:00 PM

Where did you acquire your birds? I have been checking out www.mcmurrayhatchery.com and i found that some seed and feed stores sell them as well here.

**Valerie in WA** · 10-28-2005, 11:20 PM

If you do mail order, you have to get quite a few, in order for them to keep each other warm during shipping. I know for chicks the minimum order is 25. Ducklings are...maybe 15? I'm not sure.

Our local feed stores have lots of chicks and many had straight run duckings (gender not determined). Since I wanted hens only, I had to go thru a Grange (feed store) in a very inconvenient location to get mine. They placed the big order from the hatchery and divied them up to buyers like me.

**nodmicks** · 10-31-2005, 08:05 AM

I bought from the feed store (they order at 2.75 each but you pay a 6$ fee if you order under the minimum"). I bought my last duck for $2 from an Amish farmer.

**Darlene** · 10-31-2005, 08:27 AM

Great post Valerie! Are you able to have them where you live Missy?

**Valerie in WA** · 01-18-2006, 05:35 PM

**guest32** · 01-18-2006, 05:54 PM

Thanks Valerie!

I'm also wondering why you chose duck eggs over chicken eggs? Do they taste the same? Do you sell what you don't use?

Sorry...I'm full of questions!

**Valerie in WA** · 01-18-2006, 05:58 PM

We eat all our eggs. They max out at 21 eggs a week, but sometimes I only get 10 or 14. Unbiased outsiders say they taste the same. I agree.

I chose ducks over chickens on a friend's recommendation. Basically ducks are more hardy, require less care and shelter, and are susceptible to WAY fewer diseases. Dave Holderread's book as a chart comparing the differences, but those were the biggies for me.

**guest32** · 01-18-2006, 06:07 PM

Great info Valerie

Two more questions...how many ducks do you have? (that's a lot of eggs!)

Is it still raining there?

**Valerie in WA** · 01-18-2006, 06:10 PM

Three. An egg a day each, most of the time.

And yes, although the 'official' recording station had no rain on Sunday - so we broke our nearly 30 day streak. However, I had rain on my windshield on Sunday. Actually, it rained overnight, but I don't think it's rained since daybreak (it's now 3pm).