Duck Feed Study - HELP NEEDED!

[MandoDuck]

For my current study (see footnote), I need some volunteers who can track their duck's food intake for exactly one week. More specifically, anyone who is currently feeding Mazuri Maintenance Diet and is willing to weight some meals, please send me the following info:
1. Age, gender and weight of duck (+/- breed)
2. Serving: free feeding/ number of meals a day
3. Weight of (dry!) pellets consumed (!!!) after 7 days

For accuracy reasons, I need reports for individual ducks, not an entire flock. Also, please let me know if you allow your duck to forage during the day.

Please share this thread to your all your friends who meet the upper mentioned conditions.

Footnote (for the ones who haven't seen my first thread):
I am currently conducting a study on duck nutrition which is focused on finding the right balance of whole raw ingredients for this particular bird species. My aim is to make a pattern which anyone can apply at home for their pet ducks and which can be personalised based on each of your birds' needs.

 

[Weeg]

For my current study (see footnote), I need some volunteers who can track their duck's food intake for exactly one week. More specifically, anyone who is currently feeding Mazuri Maintenance Diet and is willing to weight some meals, please send me the following info:
1. Age, gender and weight of duck (+/- breed)
2. Serving: free feeding/ number of meals a day
3. Weight of (dry!) pellets consumed (!!!) after 7 days

For accuracy reasons, I need reports for individual ducks, not an entire flock. Also, please let me know if you allow your duck to forage during the day.

Please share this thread to your all your friends who meet the upper mentioned conditions.

Footnote (for the ones who haven't seen my first thread):
I am currently conducting a study on duck nutrition which is focused on finding the right balance of whole raw ingredients for this particular bird species. My aim is to make a pattern which anyone can apply at home for their pet ducks and which can be personalised based on each of your birds' needs.

Very cool thread! I don't feed Mazuri, so can't be much help. May I suggest you change your title so it better explains what your looking for? Maybe something like, "need data for Mazuri duck feed" or "help with study on Mazuri feed and ducks." This might attract more of the people that your looking for. When I clicked on the thread I thought it as an emergency. Glad to see it isn't! Either way I'll be folioing along! Neat idea.

 

[KaleIAm]

I feed Mazuri... I'd be happy to help but I can't separate my ducks. They would be super stressed out. I also might have a rodent or two helping out with food consumption.... Hmmm....

 

[Weeg]

I feed Mazuri... I'd be happy to help but I can't separate my ducks. They would be super stressed out. I also might have a rodent or two helping out with food consumption.... Hmmm....

Could you just feed them separately? I feed my birds daily since my feed is fermented, maybe they could eat separately? Not sure if that would work though since they'd have to eat it all in one sitting.

 

[Duckiiess]

Ducks are very social, I can't imagine a study such as this being accurate at all... why not just divide the lbs of feed eaten by the # of ducks in the flock?

 

[Weeg]

Ducks are very social, I can't imagine a study such as this being accurate at all... why not just divide the lbs of feed eaten by the # of ducks in the flock?

That would work, Its probably about as accurate as your going to get. It would take a lot of work to track individual amounts of feed. I don't think a lot of backyard poultry keepers would be able to dedicate their time to that.

 

[MandoDuck]

I know my request is quite challenging, but unfortunately average values won't help me in my study.
General recommendations are already available on the internet (e.g. Mazuri manufacturer suggests 1/4 cup of pellets per lb of body weight), but these numbers are only indicative. In my study, I want to fill this gap and find a correlation between age, weight, level of exercise and feed consumption.
I totally understand that everyone is busy and doesn't have time to keep an eye on each and every duck. As an alternative, you can try dividing your flock in groups of similar individuals (same age & weight) before feed time. Once they're done eating, they can stay together again.

 

[Duckiiess]

I think you'd be best served contacting a duck farm like metzer.. they seperate by breed, so the sizes should all be quite similar. Even if you can get a couple people in this forum to take place in the study, a sampling size like that would merely be anecdotal... I really don't think feed consumption is as exact of a science as you're making it out to be, not sure why you're not happy with the general recommendations online.

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

Yeah, and in some places like Florida they would eat less then in Canada, because they don't have to battle the cold. Just sayin'.

 

[KaleIAm]

Sorry, I'm not a good candidate then. I am not willing to separate my ducks. I do only have 2 and they are approximately the same weight, but different breeds. They get extremely anxious when separate and one won't eat at all when not with her flockmate.