Changing from pellets to grains, veg etc

[Maisi]

Hi
I am new to keeping ducks (have kept chickens before)
I brought 3 ducks and one drake home and discovered that they are totally used to pellet feed only. No matter how nice the other feed is they wont touch it.
Is there any way of getting them used to eating veg, grains, scrambled eggs etc?
Thank you for any advice
Maisi

 

[Perris]

hello @Maisi ! welcome to BYC
time and patience are good friends with that! At the moment they probably don't recognize anything but pellets as food, so you could also try mixing them together. Or if you offer both and gradually reduce the quantity of pellets, hunger will prompt them to try the other things.

 

[Maisi]

Hello perris
Thank you. Im glad theres hope!

 

[DuckyDonna]

Hi Maisi! Welcome to BYC!
How old are the ducks and what breed are they? What @Perris said is probably the best idea. Ducks don't like change! AT all! If I move their pool 10 feet it takes them 3 days to get back in it again so I think food would work the same way. If you just got them they've had super big changes in every part of their lives so they just need to settle in and adjust. It will take a while so patience is needed.

Why don't you want to feed them pellets? Purina has some new Duck Pellets made specifically for ducks that have all the vitamins and nutrients that ducks need. If you are in the US they may have them in 40lb bags or 5lb bags at Tractor Supply. They only had the 5lb bags at the store near me so I nagged and badgered them until they finally ordered them in the big bags. They are $15.99 for 40lbs or $5.99 for 5lbs! Do the math, it's a staggering increase if you only buy it by the small bags!

 

[Eric_W]

Ducks do absolutely hate change. They crack me up. I have 4 that were raised by others and needed homes that I took in. I could tell were never given snacks before. They'd watch the others eat from my hands mealworms, peas, corn, etc. and I'd throw to them and they refused anything for a while. I just kept offering and it took some time and patience but now they eat from my hands just like the others. I find my don't waste near as much with pellets than they did with crumbles or mash. Only thing I don't like is mixing in supplements doesn't work and I like to give mine niacin supplement in winter since they don't get as many bugs this time of year. I remember the first time I switched their coop from pine bedding to straw for winter they went on strike and slept in the run for a week lol.

 

[Miss Lydia]

When I want to add supplements I will mix some olive oil into their feed just enough to keep the feed and supplements mixed to each other so the supplements don’t end up on the bottom of the feed bowl.

 

[CoriM]

I recently switched from whole grains to pellets. At first my ducks would pick up the pellets and they would just fall out of their mouths, then be totally ignored. I just started putting a few pellets on top of the grains and over time I was able to get them to eat just pellets. Now I switch it up and give them the whole grains a couple times a week, because Eric W said, it's the best way to get supplements into them, and I like to add some vitamins and niacin. The reason I switched to pellets (and not sure I'll always stay with that) was that the fines in my whole grain mix were just ending up as sludge in the bottom of their water dish. When I would change out the pond in their run, which I did everyday, I couldn't believe how much grain was at the bottom. So it felt like waste, and I wasn't confident they were getting all the nutrients out. I'm just an amateur though. I think letting your ducks get comfortable in their new space before making too much change is a good idea - they'll get there!

 

[DuckyDonna]

I know @Miss Lydia uses nutritional yeast and because of her so do I now. When I refill my feed buckets which is about every 2 days I sprinkle 2 heaping tablespoons of nutritional yeast right on top of the food in each bucket. I don't mix it in so it gets eaten first. I like the olive oil idea though. I forgot to add that my ducks have never looked better which I attribute to the NY

 

[Eric_W]

When I want to add supplements I will mix some olive oil into their feed just enough to keep the feed and supplements mixed to each other so the supplements don’t end up on the bottom of the feed bowl.

That's a great idea!

 

[DuckyDonna]

I recently switched from whole grains to pellets. At first my ducks would pick up the pellets and they would just fall out of their mouths, then be totally ignored. I just started putting a few pellets on top of the grains and over time I was able to get them to eat just pellets. Now I switch it up and give them the whole grains a couple times a week, because Eric W said, it's the best way to get supplements into them, and I like to add some vitamins and niacin. The reason I switched to pellets (and not sure I'll always stay with that) was that the fines in my whole grain mix were just ending up as sludge in the bottom of their water dish. When I would change out the pond in their run, which I did every day, I couldn't believe how much grain was at the bottom. So it felt like a waste, and I wasn't confident they were getting all the nutrients out. I'm just an amateur though. I think letting your ducks get comfortable in their new space before making too much change is a good idea - they'll get there!

That's interesting because I find that the crumbles I give them ends up the same way, as sludge in the bottom of the water buckets too. I've recently switched to the Purina duck pellets but I've got to use up my flock raiser crumbles so I'm mixing them together right now. I no longer put the food buckets near the pool and that has eliminated that happening in the pool.
On another note, I recently put landscape cloth under my pool and surrounding area and that has made an incredible difference in the pool water not getting so disgusting. Don't get me wrong, it's still disgusting but now its just poo instead of mud and food mixed in.