Ducktown
Songster
- May 8, 2017
- 354
- 297
- 161
Here's a thing...
I have 3 ducklings now, 1 week and over old. They have unimaginable appetite and will eat everything, rotting dry grass outside, wood shavings, leaf particles, ... anything they find which seems chewy enough for them actually. They have huge crops and I'm not sure if that's not because they ate some unappetizing crap outside. Well, they also love to chew on their brooder box cardboard. Before I noticed it, they managed to chew up quite nice portion.
I have lowered their feed rations to see if their crops remain enlarged or not - how large they are when empty. I noticed they do get smaller, but remained visibly filled up with something after around 16 hours.
I checked and they all poop. For a short duration, some of them (or all) pooped only clear water and tiny amount of brown crap in it. At that point I noticed something isn't working and started giving them sand from backyard. I picked grit with diameter of up to around 2 mm and took out anything smaller than 1.5mm. They did not show any interest in it when I just placed it inside their brooder, so I mixed some into their feed. They ate it this way.
How much they need to properly use it?
How large should the grit be?
Is there any other way to make them search for it when outside on their own? Well, I think they might be getting some, but I can not be sure and in this situation, it's better safe than sorry. I splashed some water over a patch of grass with mud and decent amount of sand in it. They did the duck sieving thing and chirped ecstatically, but I didn't see if they consumed any of the pebbles.
Oh, and before I forget.. Their droppings are not that wet anymore, but are somewhat small. As soon as I saw normal droppings, I felt relieved and started giving them more feed again, so they don't starve (and eat too much cardboard). If the cardboard is the issue, it will get out of their system quickly, because it gets easily torn apart when wet. My main concern is if they managed to find straw outside or even dog hair my dogs might have left laying around.
Otherwise, these ducklings are exceptionally active, they constantly jump out of the brooder, run around and chirp happily. One of them recently started quacking (not the adult quacking, just that trumpety sound which is not the normal chick chirp).
I have 3 ducklings now, 1 week and over old. They have unimaginable appetite and will eat everything, rotting dry grass outside, wood shavings, leaf particles, ... anything they find which seems chewy enough for them actually. They have huge crops and I'm not sure if that's not because they ate some unappetizing crap outside. Well, they also love to chew on their brooder box cardboard. Before I noticed it, they managed to chew up quite nice portion.
I have lowered their feed rations to see if their crops remain enlarged or not - how large they are when empty. I noticed they do get smaller, but remained visibly filled up with something after around 16 hours.
I checked and they all poop. For a short duration, some of them (or all) pooped only clear water and tiny amount of brown crap in it. At that point I noticed something isn't working and started giving them sand from backyard. I picked grit with diameter of up to around 2 mm and took out anything smaller than 1.5mm. They did not show any interest in it when I just placed it inside their brooder, so I mixed some into their feed. They ate it this way.
How much they need to properly use it?
How large should the grit be?
Is there any other way to make them search for it when outside on their own? Well, I think they might be getting some, but I can not be sure and in this situation, it's better safe than sorry. I splashed some water over a patch of grass with mud and decent amount of sand in it. They did the duck sieving thing and chirped ecstatically, but I didn't see if they consumed any of the pebbles.
Oh, and before I forget.. Their droppings are not that wet anymore, but are somewhat small. As soon as I saw normal droppings, I felt relieved and started giving them more feed again, so they don't starve (and eat too much cardboard). If the cardboard is the issue, it will get out of their system quickly, because it gets easily torn apart when wet. My main concern is if they managed to find straw outside or even dog hair my dogs might have left laying around.
Otherwise, these ducklings are exceptionally active, they constantly jump out of the brooder, run around and chirp happily. One of them recently started quacking (not the adult quacking, just that trumpety sound which is not the normal chick chirp).
