Do 1 week old ducks still need food and water at night?

[Germaine_11.20]

Hi, I am trying to find out when I can take the food and water away from the ducks at night.
They are making a huge mess, and it would help to have a little less time playing in the water.
They manage to knock whatever I put in there over or drink and spit it everywhere.
Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Violet22]

From what I have read and been told they should never be without water at any age, and food should be available at all times until 2 weeks, and then some people switch to 2-3 times a day. For me, I like them to have access to food 24/7.
It IS a mess.........my ducklings are 5 weeks old and still in a pen on the back porch. I haven't got their outside pen done, and I am getting really tired of cleaning up their wet mess......in fact, I gotta go do it now

.
Ducks are MESSY, and wait until they get bigger, BIGGER mess! I want them outside SO badly, they'll still be messy, but it will be so much easier to keep clean, and maybe my house will smell good again!

 

[froggie71]

Since they pretty much just sleep at night, once they start getting too messy we take away food and water at night when in the brooder. We lost a duckling once when it got too wet overnight and couldn't get dry even with a heat lamp. You just can't leave food without water. Once outside in the duck house they always have food and water available.

 

[JessHall]

I thought they at least have to have water.

 

[froggie71]

Quote:
They really don't need water when they are sleeping

Like I said if you take away the food and water before you go to bed and replace it in the morning, they should be fine. We just raised 16 ducklings this way and all were fine.

 

[Germaine_11.20]

Thank you so much everyone. I thought I read that about not giving food without water and that at night you could take both away. I might wait one more week.
But I have 3 and 1/2 week old geese and I think they should be done at night too. Guess I will see how tonight goes.

 

[Cetawin]

I would wait a couple of weeks. At that young age I heard mine up and down all night eating at different times. I just kept food and water in there with them all night. They are 12 weeks old and doing fabulously. I made my decision to keep it when I heard them at different hours up and about. they will let you know when they are ready to snooze all night and need no food and water.

 

[Goat_Walker]

I have four 3 week old ducklings taht I keep in a big plastic pool at night. I give them both food and water - since I can just pick up the nasty newspaper and then spray it out every morning.

 

[rainplace]

Dave Holderread in Storeys Guide to Raising Ducks says that ducklings should have a constant supply of water. My ducklings never knocked over their waterer so maybe you should find a different sort or weight the waterer down. I had a small brooder so to help with the mess I put a thin book under the back so that any water mess ended up at the other end of the brooder. At the high end I folded up a towel for them to sleep and stay dry on. I changed out the towel a few times a day. I also had to make sure to level out the waterer

When they get older and can eat pellets, the mess is a lot less, however, ducks are just messy beasts.

 

[froggie71]

Trust me, our ducks didn't need to knock over the water to make a mess. They would drink the water and get it all over with in minutes of putting it in the brooder. We had an appropriate waterer for ducks and we had it level, those messy little devils just worked as a team to get it everywhere!

In anycase, we did wait till they were just too messy (probably 2 weeks) till we took food/water at night. As I said it worked for us and you should do what you think is right. I'm definitely not telling anyone they should do this, just what worked for us.