Baby duck and chick

Hey all!
So Saturday my husband surprised me with a baby chick (red production hen) and a baby duck (pecan). They were born on 4/20
I HAVE NEVER HAD CHICKS OR DUCKS AND NEED HELP!

I want to make sure I'm doing everything good for them. Currently they are in a wooden crate, that I line with a trash bag, then cardboard and then paper towels. With a light. I have a chick watering bottle and then a small bowl for the food. The food I have is purina start & grow.
I'm worried because the duck likes to lay down a lot, she can move around quickly, stand tall and streach but she just seems to want to be lay down often.
In reading so far, I understand this feed might not have enough protein (18%) and also ducks need more niacin? But if I use a niacin supplement in the water will that harm the chick?
Please advise the best way to take care of a duck and chick together!

Start and Grow does NOT have the Niacin needed. You will have to supplement.
Start and Grow does NOT have the needed protein. It's 18%, you should be giving the duck 20%.
Start and Grow is chicken feed. Thus the reason you are not getting the correct levels needed.

I would grab a bag of Flock Raiser. It's everything you need for the duck. The Niacin and 20% protein.
Flock Raiser will be OK for the chicken also.

As far as the Niacin supplement. It will not hurt the chicken. Like the human body the chicken will rid the excess via it's urine. Hope this helps.

Thank you! Any advise to their home set up? I just picked up some pine shavings from Petco. I will be making a trip to our local feed store tomorrow where I can load up on everything I should have.

Our guys started out in this for one week, lol
Then...


Then we made updates along the way

This is deffantly the way to go with the water! You'll deffantly do not want to keep the food so close to the water.

Then there was 4
We built this for a temporary pen untill we get the big one built but they still come in at night.


They are 4 weeks old now!

CSunny said:

Thank you! Any advise to their home set up? I just picked up some pine shavings from Petco. I will be making a trip to our local feed store tomorrow where I can load up on everything I should have.

Click to expand...

my friend has raise about 9 chickens at her home and i'm planning on getting my own ducklings here within the next two months or so.

anyways, what my friend used for her chicks was a plastic kiddie pool (can be used later when your duckling gets bigger) filled with the pine shavings, and a surround around the pool to keep the babies contained.

for the surround, what she's used is one of those big, hard cardboard stands you see at like walmart that hold the pumpkins and oranges and what not. she said she asked the produce guy at our local walmart and he was happy to let her have one. she suggested that i use that because
a) it's tall enough to keep them contained
b) it's easily recyclable once you're done with it
c) you can easily move it for cleaning or easily lean over the edge
d) the heat lamp she used could clip onto the top or on one of the vents on the sides depending on how low to the chicks she wanted the light to be.

anyways, hope that helps you. its the same thing im personally going to be using once i get my new babies

I just used an old Rubbermaid container with a heat lamp, food, water and pine shavings until they were old enough to head outside.

As another poster stated, Purina Flock Raiser is your best feed for both... get the larger flake shavings to keep the duck from eating the smaller shavings, since they love to bill around in the bedding...

Also, a Pekin grows a bit too quickly for their own legs... their legs will catch up, but will take a bit... @Tevyes Dad moved the water further away from the food so his Pekin had to exercise more and it helped a lot...

The duck will also need a deep, cup like water access to be able to submerge it's head into to clear out the nares and eyes... a small sour cream tub with a hole cut out of the lid usually works... and watch for the duck soaking the chick and it catching a chill... good luck!