Daily duck care

[Farmergreen]

If you research through this site, you will find that there is a bit more than feeding and watering to keeping healthy ducks. There are threads on here that are very well written on duck keeping. First and foremost is predator proof housing. How will you insure that they are safe from becoming prey if you are away for the weekend? It just takes a few minutes for a raccoon or fox to wipe out a duck population, it is a gory site to come home to.
It would be much better to find a reputable pet sitter that can come twice a day to deal with them, or do what I do when I go away, have someone stay at my house. But I have WAY more than just ducks.
THe cleaning is very important with ducks. They are MESSY. Filthy actually. I cannot imagine what I would find with my nine ducks if I did not clean their area daily. They poop EVERYWHERE. On things, in things, around things, in places you cannot even imagine how they did it. They make their water bowls a mud pit in minutes, I refill bowls constantly to keep clean water for face washing and drinking. The pool is cleaned daily when we are using the smaller pool, and every other day when we use the giant pool. If you leave a bunch of food down and you have chipmunks, rats, mice or squirrels, you will be stunned at how fast the bowl empties. I feed mine a few times a day in small amounts so the critters don't eat it all.
All that being said, ducks are GREAT fun. They are cute, silly, funny, amazing creatures. They are so worth the work. But they are work and a lot if it if you want to do it right.
Hope this helps a bit.

This is good advice also. Oh I have 6 Pekins 2 Geese 2 cayca 12 call ducks and a partridge in a pecan tree. Just kidding about the Partridge

 

[FluffyDucklings]

Just curious but do your geese and ducks get along? Im interested in getting geese but im not sure how they will be with my ducks

 

[Farmergreen]

Not really . The Geese kinda ran the pen when I had them together. I have since separated them. I have to keep mine penned at all times.In fact all my Birds are penned. My outside perimeter guard will kill anything that gets in the pasture. I can let Him into the pen area and he just looks at them. Large Pyrenees

 

[FluffyDucklings]

Did u raise your geese and ducks together? I was thinking of rasing some goslings with ducklings. Would that help them to get along with the the ducks?

 

[Going Quackers]

It definitely depends on how many that all said, ducks require a lot of water care, plus their not like chickens and don't really head for the coop by dusk. I have some ducks who will put themselves in but i would never go as far to say their as good as chickens in that regard.

Being larger birds they eat more and the mess is more too. Quite a few duck breeds fly and well, so that is something to be aware of. They don't dig up the place like chickens do( you should see around my cedars!! from mine) but they drill small holes and turn areas into mud holes quite well, even bantam breeds.

I would recommend a book, Storey's guide to ducks and look about, read this forum. Ducks are a great addition, most of mine are here for pest control but they are most definitely a step up in time and care compared to my chickens.

 

[Apyl]

I have ducks, chickens, and geese all in one coop. The only part of raising ducks that is harder than chickens in brooding. They are very messy. My ducks formed their own little flock and usually stay away from the chickens. The geese along with 4 ducks have their own mini flock as well. The male goose mates the ducks constantly. The chickens head to coop first at dusk, the ducks and geese go in a little after dark, which doesn't matter here since we don't close up until well after dark. I have a kiddie pool that gets filled every couple days. During the summer I fill two kiddie pools to make sure there is enough water to go around. The entire flock uses the pools as their water. As for feed they all get them same thing, I toss out about 6 cups of feed and they free range for the rest of their food.

Personally I would not leave the ducks unchecked for a week while on vacation. You need to decide whats more important, numerous week long vacations or owning ducks. In order to leave them that long unchecked you will need a aviary protected like Fort Knox, automatic running water, and a large feeding system. Unless of course you hire someone or have a friend some each day to check on them , fill water and feed, and close the coop.

 

[bmt123]

I would only leave them for the weekend without someone watching them