Introduction, and a question!

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acipolone

acipolone

In the Brooder
9 Years
Apr 5, 2010
33
0
32
Hammond, LA
Hello! We just hatched our first clutch -- what an amazing experience! We have 2 Indian Runner males, 1 Buff Orpington female and 1 Buff Orpington male that we've bred. Out of the 14 eggs, we ended up with 9 ducklings. Everything went pretty well except for the hatching -- some apparently had spun around in the shell and tried to hatch out the wrong end! We didn't help one and it ended up dying, but the other 3 we helped and they're doing awesome so far. (We spoke to an exotic vet and he said this was the right thing to do.)

My big problem right now is finding consistent information. Everywhere on the 'net seems to have contradictory info, but everyone here seems to be pretty well versed and has some real experience, so I thought I might check in and get some tips from everyone!

Right now we're having a brooder issue with bedding -- the towels are a pain in the butt. We have some hay for the adults out back, but these Runner/Buff hybrids are messy messy messy and it turned into a stinky swampy mess in no time at all. We checked a variety of sites and everyone said wood shavings are okay -- we just picked up a bag of aspen shavings, but as soon as we put them in they started to eat them. Not just pick at them, but EAT them. Is this normal? Is this okay for them to do? Should we go back to hay?

As for food, everyone in the New Orleans recommended this chicken mash they sell, but it was medicated, and we were told that was bad. Right now we're using Flock Raiser and running it through the food processor to mash it up a bit for them, since the pellets are kind of giant. They seem to be doing well -- does this sound like good feed to keep them on?

We're in New Orleans, so the weather is amazing. We had them outside for a little bit today just to get some actual sunlight and fresh air, and they loved it. We had removed the bottom of a cardboard box and let them walk on the grass. Apparently they're giant fans of clover.
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So, any tips for new duckling parents? Things we should avoid completely? Something we should definitely do that we might not be doing?

Thanks! We very much look forward to becoming a part of the community here!

Anthony & Kaela
 
 
Welcome, indeed!

My experience has been to stick with towels for two reasons. One, the first two times we tried the switch to shavings, they ate them. Lots of them. Yuck. When we tried at four weeks, they ate very few, but I found out we are allergic to pine shavings. And hardwood shavings coated the room with dust and made the ducklings and me sneeze and cough (which means they are at increased risk of sinus and respiratory infections, which can be quite serious).

So, I take a deep breath, remember how much I care about these little critters, remember that they will eventually be outside where I can use hardwood shavings and perhaps a little straw mixed in (they will not be near the house when I replace shavings, and the well ventilated duckhouse won't hold the dust so much as the room in my house), and clean the brooder, replacing the towels, three or four times a day.

Many people swear by pine shavings. Okay. They don't work for me. Annarie uses towels and they seem to work for her.

One thing you might try if you are bound and determined to stop using towels is to place something like plastic poultry fencing over the shavings. It might be harder for them to eat the shavings then. It also introduces a level of complexity to cleaning up . . . .

Ducklings need about 20% protein the first two weeks, about 18% the next two, and about 16% until they are ready to begin laying, then the protein needs to increase a percent or two during laying season. (I am remembering this from Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks, which I strongly recommend you find a copy of).

Ducklings also must have about three times the amount of niacin found in chick feeds. Lack of niacin can cause life-threatening problems in ducklings. Eating bugs helps them get enough niacin, but you can also add it to their water or use brewer's yeast (do a search on niacin on this forum - I think I recently posted the numbers on how much niacin in the water - and someone else wrote about how much brewer's yeast).

Avoid spinach, but feed them salad regularly, including lettuce (not iceberg), chard, cress, dandelion, chickweed. Mine love peas as treats, but I don't give them more than a half a cup (for eleven birds) a day.

I like giving mine vitamins once or twice a week, to boost their immune systems.

Search the BYC duck forum for topics - we cover most everything, often multiple times.

Again, welcome, and keep taking good care of your ducklings! Congratulations!
 
Wow, thanks for all that great info!

The Flock Raiser we have (made by Purina Mills) is 20% protein, so we figure once it's time to lower the protein content we can start supplementing with other things a little bit.

Did anything happen with the ducklings eating the shavings? I suppose if we could verify that it's not dangerous to them we'd use it.

Since we're using food made for ducks, I don't think we need to worry about the niacin content, but I'll look on the forums for your post and check the breakdown of the Flock Raiser stuff to see how it matches up.

I guess the towels aren't THAT bad, but ... I'm just amazed that these little guys are such prolific poopers. Have you had problems with them getting water everywhere? I'm guessing that's something common with them just dribbling water from their beaks everywhere.

What kind of vitamins do you give yours?

Again, thanks for the info!
 
When we moved our ducks onto shavings they seemed to be trying to eat them as well. We promptly started throwing them some yummy treats and they stopped. I think my ducks were mostly tasting, but I did have a few moments of wondering what kind of digestive upsets we were going to have to deal with (such as death, just being paranoid
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) But they are fine and ignore them now.

X2 on what Amiga wrote about nutrition!

And yes, the water is everywhere!! I am currently using a old horse supplement bucket with a flip top lid that I partially cut for a water with a plastic pan under it. The pan catches some. I think they slurp up water and carry it in their mouths to any dry places left in the brooder and spit it out, just to be sure that nothing gets missed. LOL. Someone on here suggested putting those puppy training pads under the shavings. I am going to try that I think, if they're not outside today.

WELCOME TO BYC!
 
All eleven ducklings are still with us, bless the Lord. But I took them off the shavings within minutes after seeing them chow down.

After four weeks of age, they were on shavings for over a week before the sneezing, coughing, and thick layer of dust made me revise my strategy.

I use Vitamins and Electrolytes Plus.

I think chickboss may be right about the little sweethearts filling their bills and wandering around the brooder.
 
Quote:
I am glad you bring up the fact that the shavings can contribute to substantial dust. It hasn't bothered our ducks so far, probably because it is constantly watered down, but in the large 4'x8' brooder that was housing our 27 chicks who scratch constantly it was epic.
 
We're going to stick to towels and some hay for now, I think. Them eating the wood shavings was a little disturbing to us. We'll just deal with the wet towels and let the poop machines do their thing.
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Do y'all do anything to mark your ducklings to tell them apart? We have 4 that we can pick out easily because of color or markings, but 5 are all sort of generic yellow ducklings. The little scientist in me wants to do things like track their weight, but I need to be able to tell them apart!

Again, thanks for all your advice and input. Towards the end of this gallery are some pics of them outside for their first time. They love clover! (And those pics with the dogs were us showing the herding dogs the ducklings that didn't make it. Luna, the blue sheltie, was especially heartbroken over it.)

http://picasaweb.google.com/TeamHighTail/BabyDuckies#

Anthony
 
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