duck eating chicken feed? wont eat duck chow

[JP101010]

i have one male crested pekin named Clyde and i cannot get him to eat duck chow or any duck feed.. all he wants is Layena chicken feed by purina. he will eat treats like worms, feeder fish , fruit and whatever he can steal from our pot bellied pig Percy. i have tried the duck chow out of the pool in the pool water down to soup in a crumble mix, and i have tried doing the gradual slow blending over a 2 week span of both but as soon as it gets to be more duck chow then chicken feed he just heads over to the chicken area and vacuums it all up. i wonder if pekins are hungry by nature or if hes not getting what he needs because of the chicken feed.. he is healthy possibly heading towards pudgy if he keeps it up. lol

any suggestions?

 

[duckyfromoz]

Most likely not...but I will throw it in the ring for you to consider. Since he is a lone duck- maybe he wants to eat what the other poultry eats- and more specifically since he is so close to the chicken-maybe he just wants to eat the same as her. Stranger things heave effected the psyche of animals before. Or he is just too fussy for his own good.

Was he always like this or has it been a more recent change?

 

[PATCH5]

He probably thinks hes a chicken. I had a pair of ducks that came with the flock, they thought they were chickens. Ate chicken food, roosted at night, scared to death of ducks...

 

[dgecko]

My ducks don't eat any type of duck chow but they love eating with my dog.

 

[Tiffany from Nutrena]

Just a thought... you might want to look into feeding an All Flock type of feed (formulated for multi species of poultry including chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, etc.). That way you won't have to try and seperate what he eats from what your hens eat.

 

[gryeyes]

Quote:
This is exactly what I use, because I have a couple of Cayuga ducks and my chickens are all different ages. I offer crushed oyster shell free choice for the layers. My Cayuga lady duck also takes the oyster shell.


And it sure is nice to see someone from Nutrena on BYC!

 

[donrae]

I feed "All in One" feed, it goes to everyone from my chickies, meaties, laying hens, ducks, and of course the dog gets a healthy share

 

[Autumnwolf12]

I raised some ducks with my chickens last year and the feed store said to make sure to not feed the ducks the medicated chick food, so I got this stuff they called game bird crumble that was good for chickens and ducks

 

[JP101010]

Thank-you for all the great advice , it only took me a month and a half to find the section to view all my own posts

forgot i had even posted. I am using non medicated chicken feed but i will definitely try the "all in one" bird crumble- and i'm assuming because its not formulated for laying , thats where the oyster shell comes into place- do you mix it with food or offer it alone in a dish?

Since he is a lone duck- maybe he wants to eat what the other poultry eats- and more specifically since he is so close to the chicken-maybe he just wants to eat the same as her.

I tried Putting his lover , miss red's , food next to his , still no luck - not to rule out the possibility of maybe wanting to eat out of the same dish , which is the norm for these lovebirds

thats why i'm heading to the other feed store to get a big bag of all in one - with a pet pig it wont go to waste in case the chickens protest the new food.

Was he always like this or has it been a more recent change?

he has always been this way , him and his brother and miss red the chicken have been housed together since they were 3 days old- when i purchased the ducklings i was told that it was ok to just feed whatever i fed my chickens ( talk about trying to make the sale !) later i found out all about duck feed.​