Are ducks ever NOT hungry?

[Magnolia Ducks]

Mine eat 24/7 too..

it's wierd. If I feed at set times they act like they are starving. If they have a full bowl, they are more interested in drilling the yard. Maybe my ducks are strange. Rats are something to manage.

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

Really? I suppose that was my biggest question. I have those metal feeders for the ducks and the feed gets stuck inside. So I’ve never been actually been able to just leave them in the barn with food and find any left over, because darn metal feeders don’t allow enough out! Ugh! Which is why I have set meal times.

Have you tried home made pvc pipes?

 

[Duckfarmer1]

Have you tried home made pvc pipes?

Oh, well we made them feeders built into the wall on the barn now, but I still feed them twice because I give them sooo much, and it’s gone within minutes. I was, I suppose just complaining about my high- priced metal feeders again! Lol

 

[Miss Lydia]

Look into the. Goat feeders at TSC they work great here the ducks don’t waste with them and the chickens can’t get into them and scratch the feed out. I have tried many things over the years and these work the best. I have given away and sold other things I bought to try. It’s always trial an error when you have animals.

 

[Duckfarmer1]

Look into the. Goat feeders at TSC they work great here the ducks don’t waste with them and the chickens can’t get into them and scratch the feed out. I have tried many things over the years and these work the best. I have given away and sold other things I bought to try. It’s always trial an error when you have animals.

Are they very expensive?

 

[Miss Lydia]

Less than 20.00 last forever!

 

[Duckfarmer1]

Are they very expensive?

I just looked, there’s a big one for $169...that’s too much. Do you mean the small one for $16? They look very similar to the wood box we made all along the barn wall? The box is working, it’s just, still, that they always want more food, no matter how much I calculated by that internet info of how much they are supposed to eat.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Yes the smaller ones when I bought them they were about 15 each. How do your smaller ducks eat out of your they look like they are just about too high for your big ducks? Please don’t take that question as being critical.

 

[Duckfarmer1]

Yes the smaller ones when I bought them they were about 15 each. How do your smaller ducks eat out of your they look like they are just about too high for your big ducks? Please don’t take that question as being critical.

Oh, no, it definitely needs lowered...trial and error...lol. The smaller guys get two Rubbermaid bins now that I take away after so nobody poops in them overnight...lol lowering the box is on the list for this week hopefully, since the holiday is over.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Having food and water available for 24 hours has made my ducks so much calmer and less concerned about food. (Except Blanca Duck, of course!) They know they can just walk into their living room, grab a bill full of pellets, dunk it in the waterer and gulp it down. Then run back outside and continue foraging, splashing, mating and - drilling holes.
The yard between the duck-house and the patio is now ankle deep mud with a drill-hole every five inches...

Having two (in my case three) separate compartments in the duck house helps a lot to keep the bedding dry (not clean!). They have their living room with the less-waste RubberMaid-street-elbow feeder that can hold up to 100lbs of pellets (2 bags) and a hanging 5 gallon waterer. They make their mess there, where i can just hose it away every 1-2 days, and they sleep in the other two compartments. I use straw as bedding, starting with a 2-3" layer at the bottom, then adding a small amount every day to cover the poop until the whole thing is about a foot deep, then do a full clean-out and start over. Daily egg collection, straw spreading and hosing is less than 15 minutes.
That waterer is a drag! - Not because of the mess they make with the water, but because i have to haul a full 5 gallon waterer (24 liter, about 30 Kg!) every day into the house and lift it up more than 1' with one hand and hook it to the rope with a carabiner using the other hand. And if it is cold, that dang thing freezes solid and takes forever to thaw! I like to have an almost self cleaning duck waterer in their house, but i would have to run a frost-free waterline from the spigot to the duck-house and that means digging a 1' deep trench, 20 meters long…