duck care and housing

[ladycluck]

how do people keep ducks?
sorrry, mega stupid qustion

 

[animalloverabh]

well you can house them indoors but personally would not, if you keep them outside then they will need a place for them to go out and a shelter with straw in, feed them duck food or duck starter, and they will love water in any form eter in baths or in a pool or pond hope this helps

BTW

 

[fisharescary]

Could I suggest you read Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks? I found it extremely helpfull.
Then of course you come back here with questions! But for now, that's a really broad question.

 

[Amiga]

I second the recommendation for Storey's Guide. It is great! It helped me understand enough (I had raised a few ducks when I was a teenager, but I am in a very different climate now, with different resources available) to ask more specific questions on this forum, which has been a great resource (the people who post here are wonderful).

There are many ways to raise ducks, if you look at all the different setups people have. But all the different setups are really designed to address the needs of the ducks, which are the same.

There are a few basics - the birds need to be safe from predators (right now, for my ducklings, that means the cats, and when they move outdoors there is a lo o o o ng list of crits to deal with).

They need proper temperature (that changes from week to week),

they need a constant supply of fresh water (from topics here you will see that is not always as simple as some people think at first) that they cannot drown in,

a balanced ration of food that is not going to choke them (being water animals, they have trouble with dry food unless there is abundant water a few steps away) or get wet and moldy and poison them.

They need a relatively clean environment, which for me means about three bedding changes a day, plus bathtime (something else that you need to do correctly or risk drowning or illness).

They need some exercise and enough elbow room that they don't start picking on each other - crowding can cause unfriendly behaviors.

They need an attentive person to care for them

Many of these topics have been recently posted, with some very good answers from a wide range of experience. So use the search to find some gems of duck care wisdom.

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