Feeeeeed

[Gerty0630]

Just looking for everyone's opinions. I have two 1 year old ducks. three 7 week old ducklings, and three 3 week old ducklings right now. Seems like opinions vary on timing of switching feeds. How long does everyone feed starter feed before switching to grower feed before switching to layer feed? I was recently told by a person who runs a duck sanctuary that I should feed my ducklings starter feed for the first 2-3 months and that seemed like a long time to me.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I switched my Spring Ducklings from their Duckling Starter to standard Meatbird Crumbles when they were ~3½ weeks old. A thief stole the package with the duckling feed and i was running out, so i had to switch. Additionally they got meal-worms, salad, tomatoes, sweet-potatoes and other veggie scraps and they are all doing fine now at three months old. I don't recommend to feed layer-stuff at all, it is bad for the birds if they don't lay (too young, or taking a break) or for males. It is better to offer a separate Calcium source, like crushed oyster shells, so that every bird can have her individual dose as needed.

 

[Gerty0630]

In the very nicest way possible - I am not looking for suggestions on WHAT to feed. I know how to feed my ducks and ducklings and what to give them for treats, calcium, etc. I am just trying to take a poll of opinions of timing of feeds for growing ducklings for my own knowledge. Just curiousity as there seems to be a lot of varying opinions of feed timing as with absolutely everything else.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

In the very nicest way possible - I am not looking for suggestions on WHAT to feed. I know how to feed my ducks and ducklings and what to give them for treats, calcium, etc. I am just trying to take a poll of opinions of timing of feeds for growing ducklings for my own knowledge.

As said: I switched my ducklings from Duckling Starter to Meatbird Crumbles when they were 3½ weeks old. Recently i switched them from the crumbles to Meatbird pellets, same stuff just another form, they think those are worms…

 

[Gerty0630]

As said: I switched my ducklings from Duckling Starter to Meatbird Crumbles when they were 3½ weeks old. Recently i switched them from the crumbles to Meatbird pellets, same stuff just another form, they think those are worms…

Thank you

 

[Miss Lydia]

Before I switched to Non GMO feed I started all my poultry off on Purina Flock Raiser from hatch to end of life and put out oyster shell out for my layers.