First time Ducky Daddy

[Amiga]

Bravo! Just looking at your setup, I know you care very much for these littles

Please keep the updates coming, there are many caring duck people on this forum. We like ducks, and we like ducks' people, too.

The learning curve is steep, and the rewards are innumerable.

 

[earltheman]

I knew (from what I’d read here) that they’d be messy, but I was apparently not appreciating just how messy they would be. The biggest mess is made by them emptying their waterer about every 6 hours or so, mainly by splashing through it. The baking pan with the hardware cloth over it was a good idea, but I way underestimated how much water would be splashed out. The pan is about ½" deep, which I thought would be plenty large enough to contain enough water so that I could get away with only emptying it once a day. Not so. When I went to empty it last night, I found the pan had overflowed and thoroughly soaked the 4-sheet thick layer of newspaper I had underneath the pan and straw. Plus I had to move the food dish further away from the water – even though there was probably 3 inches between them, they splashed so much water that the food dish was completely waterlogged by the end of the day.

So one of my tasks for today is to find a deeper pan or dish to put under the water and food dish, maybe something about 2 inches deep. I initially used the shallow ½" deep baking pan, because I wanted to make sure the ducklings would have no problem climbing out of the straw onto the pan platform. (I figured that since ducks can't fly, everything they access needs to be on the same level.) But last night while I cleaned out the brooder, my wife sat on the floor with her feet against the wall and her legs spread in a “v” shape, with the 3 girls corralled on the floor between her legs, and we discovered something I didn’t know before: Ducklings can jump! And pretty high, too. The duckies just flipped their little feet and hopped right up onto my wife’s legs. I was impressed. And now I know that even if the platform is a little higher than the straw, the ducklings should still be able to get up onto it.

Tadpole98, you are right, I can already tell that within a very few days the waterer I am using will be too small for them to fully dip their little bills into. I think the milk jug idea is a good one, I will be trying that or something similar this weekend.

Mimieggs, thanks for the niacin advice. The food that I am using lists yeast culture and Vitamin B-12 among its ingredients, which I thought meant that it was providing for the required niacin. Is that incorrect? If a little extra niacin won’t harm the birds, perhaps I should start adding it to their water anyway.

Also, I like your idea for converting the kennel into a large brooder. I was actually contemplating that exact idea last night, as I watched my ducklings happily splashing their water all over the place. But I don’t like the cardboard idea, since it will partially block my view. I am thinking to wrap the outside of the kennel in the 1/4" hardware cloth, which is small enough that neither the duckling heads or kitty paws could fit through it. I’ve got a roll of plastic tarp, and I was thinking I could put a piece of that underneath, and since it’s (obviously) waterproof it will protect the floor. I like the puppy pads idea, I will use that. And now that I am re-thinking it, I think I will perhaps do a combination of cardboard and hardware cloth. If I put cardboard around the bottom 4 or 5 inches of the kennel, it will do a better job of keeping shavings (and poop) inside the kennel, then wrap hardware cloth around the rest.

Before I got the duckies, my original plan was to move them out to an empty kiddie wading pool in the garage when they get to 3 weeks old or so. (And that is the plan that my wife agreed to.) But now that the ducklings are here, I really want to keep them inside the house for as long as possible. Now that she’s seen and loves the ducklings, with any luck I can convince the wife to let me convert the kennel and keep the duckies in the house. Keep your fingers crossed...

I’ll keep you updated, and post more pics when I get a chance this evening.

 

[MimiEggs]

LOL, hahahaha, sorry gotta laugh----you should have seen my husbands face when he came home and saw my makeshift duck pen in the center of our living room........he did however enjoy walking up to them and saying hello duckies how ya doin.

You have two or three choices on the niacin supplement:
1. Get a poultry Vitamin and Electrolyte supplement. Read the back label for dosage and calculate it down for 1 gallon of water. Mix fresh every day.
2. Get 100 mg tablets of Niacin supplement in the human vitamin section of the grocery store. Crush and dissolve 100 mg in 1 gallon of water. Make fresh every day. DO NOT get the non-flushing kind as they don't need the extra ingredient that one contains, just the regular Niacin supplement.
3. Add a top dressing of Brewer's Yeast to their feed. Sorry I am not familiar with this one as I myself do not use it. I have read that it just does not contain enough niacin and then you have to worry about them "billing" it out of their feed dish so you are never really sure how much they are getting.

Here's the thing about niacin: young waterfowl require 2 to 3 times more niacin in their diet than chicks. Young ducks suffering from a niacin deficiency will develop weak or bowed legs and often show stunted growth and enlarged hocks. Sometimes in a group or flock of ducklings you will get some that are just doing great and flourishing while others within the same group are smaller and weaker.

My personal recommendation would be to start with adding a poultry Vitamin and Electrolyte supplement to their water. This may be all they need, but start it ASAP. If you see that one or more ducklings is not growing at the same rate as the others and/or is not walking around as much (prefering to sit down a lot), then I would add 100 mg crushed and dissolved niacin tablet to their water in addition to the Vitamin and Electrolyte solution.

A great "in hand" resource for you would be to purchase the book "Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks" by Dave Holderread (you can order online at Barnes and Noble or Amazon). It is full of great advice and valuable information..

Good luck, gotta run but will chick back later for updates.

 

[Amiga]

Ours were inside for three months

I mean, their brooder was inside. After the weather warmed up when they were six weeks, they were outside during at least part of the day.

 

[TMarie]

earltheman- I am curious to know what state you live in and how much you spent. I am also looking to buy from metzerfarms, but the cost seemed to be a bit much for the heat pad, small order charge, shipping, etc. My other concern was them making it safe and sound since I live in Illinois and it is so cold. But metzerfarms seems to be the most reputable. How long did it take for them to ship?

I'm very excited for you! lol you sound as giddy as me. I am getting so impatient, but not wanting to fork out the $60 bucks for 2 ducks when I only want 1. We have a local farm auction where you can get ducks for 25cents a piece lol so $60 just makes me cringe. But it's still winter so the kind of duck I want isn't available at the auction yet.

Anyways, I'd be interested in hearing more about your experience! Good luck with your new babies!! They're adorable!!

 

[Diamond88]

Your ducklings are absolutely adorable! Glad you joined the site--this is a great place to learn new information and ask lots of questions. And, of course, to see cute photos.

 

[earltheman]

TMarie - I live in southeast Washington State, so reasonably close to where Metzer Farms is in California. My original intent was to wait until late March to get my ducks, to make sure that the weather would be nicely warm before I put them outside. But I was so excited that I ended up jumping the gun, and went for the February delivery instead. I looked at some other farms for getting my ducks, but Metzer was the only one I found online that would sell me sexed ducklings at such a small volume. Plus the reviews from previous buyers was largely positive. But you are right, even though they will ship a small number of ducks, they charge you for a minimum of 10. The cost for the 3 ducklings, including the optional grow gel, was $43.25, including shipping it was $66.68. The cost was steep, but the truth is that when I first decided to get some ducklings, I had absolutely no idea what the "normal" cost was for ducklings -- if I'd found that the usual cost was $20 each, I would have paid it, as I have paid more than that for many a 4-legged pet in the past. So it was pretty easy for me to justify to myself (and my wife

) paying that much for 3 ducks.

My ducklings were hatched and shipped from Metzer Farms on Monday, and I recieved them on Wednesday morning. According to Metzer's web site, all the ducklings they ship out hatch on Monday and get shipped out that same day. They also claim that the way they ship them, they almost always arrive on Wednesday morning for most of the US. I was really happy with the way they were shipped. They arrived healthy, the heating pad was still warm, and the grow gel had been completely eaten.

I hope this helps you.

 

[TMarie]

That really does help me, thank you! They seem much more reputable than other companies i've seen in my quest to find a hatchery. I guess my next step is to decide if there is a temperament difference between males and females, and if it's necessary to have them sexed. I really only want one. And I want it to be an indoor duck. the only reason I would go with metzer farms would be to have it sexed, because the local breeders I know don't seem to know how to sex them. So I'm trying to decide if I definitely have to have a female.. or just take the chance and save about $55. Yes, youre right though. I've spent much more on dogs lol. So if you look at it that way, it's still pretty cheap.

 

[earltheman]

Ducklings, Day 2.
For anyone reading this thread who’s never had ducklings but is contemplating getting some, I want to repeat this again for emphasis: ducklings are messy! I would not have believed that these 3 tiny adorable creatures could have managed to dump so much water into their brooder in such a short period of time. When I came home for lunch yesterday to check on them, they seemed to be chasing each other through their nearly empty waterer. By the time I went to clean out the brooder when I came home from work, the pan had long overflowed and thoroughly soaked the newspaper and much of the straw, and the waterer was again almost empty. They had somehow managed to get much of their food into the waterdish, and also managed to throw about ½ of their food beyond the approximately 1' of platform and into the straw bedding.

So the first thing I did was to replace the tray under the waterer and food dish. At the Dollar Store, I found a plastic food storage tray that was about 14"x10"x 2" tall. That should be able to catch plenty of water, so hopefully I can get away with emptying it no more than once a day.

In a moment of weakness, I agreed to let my 6 yr old and 2 yr old boys pick names for all the duckies. The names they picked are Olivia, Dora, and Holly. If you have young kids of your own, you can probably guess the origin of all 3 of those names.

Here are some pics. These first 3 were actually taken on Wednesday evening (Day 1.) The duckies were still pretty scared of us then, you can see them hiding under the lip of the kitchen cabinet.







By evening of Day 2 (Thursday), they were a lot less scared of being around us, since the wife and kids apparently spent lots of time holding them during the day while I was at work.









The little dish you see them drinking from is a little tiny condiments dish, probably about 2" in diameter, that we put in the middle of the kitchen floor and let the ducklings drink from. They were so excited! But the funniest thing was that even though the dish is tiny, all 3 of them kept trying to swim in it. The dish was so small their bodies can’t fit in it, so they would end up sitting on it with just their little feet in the water. It took them less than 5 minutes to get all that water splashed out onto the floor.





Today I am starting to add Niacin to their water, just for good measure. And either tonight or tomorrow, I will experiment with different waterers. I have seen pictures on posts here of waterers made with milk jugs, and also with plastic butter tubs. My challenge of course will be to create something that gives them the depth of water they need, while not allowing them to swim in it. I’ll keep you posted.

 

[Going Quackers]

Ducklings, Day 2.
For anyone reading this thread who’s never had ducklings but is contemplating getting some, I want to repeat this again for emphasis: ducklings are messy! I would not have believed that these 3 tiny adorable creatures could have managed to dump so much water into their brooder in such a short period of time. When I came home for lunch yesterday to check on them, they seemed to be chasing each other through their nearly empty waterer. By the time I went to clean out the brooder when I came home from work, the pan had long overflowed and thoroughly soaked the newspaper and much of the straw, and the waterer was again almost empty. They had somehow managed to get much of their food into the waterdish, and also managed to throw about ½ of their food beyond the approximately 1' of platform and into the straw bedding.

So the first thing I did was to replace the tray under the waterer and food dish. At the Dollar Store, I found a plastic food storage tray that was about 14"x10"x 2" tall. That should be able to catch plenty of water, so hopefully I can get away with emptying it no more than once a day.

In a moment of weakness, I agreed to let my 6 yr old and 2 yr old boys pick names for all the duckies. The names they picked are Olivia, Dora, and Holly. If you have young kids of your own, you can probably guess the origin of all 3 of those names.

Here are some pics. These first 3 were actually taken on Wednesday evening (Day 1.) The duckies were still pretty scared of us then, you can see them hiding under the lip of the kitchen cabinet.







By evening of Day 2 (Thursday), they were a lot less scared of being around us, since the wife and kids apparently spent lots of time holding them during the day while I was at work.









The little dish you see them drinking from is a little tiny condiments dish, probably about 2" in diameter, that we put in the middle of the kitchen floor and let the ducklings drink from. They were so excited! But the funniest thing was that even though the dish is tiny, all 3 of them kept trying to swim in it. The dish was so small their bodies can’t fit in it, so they would end up sitting on it with just their little feet in the water. It took them less than 5 minutes to get all that water splashed out onto the floor.





Today I am starting to add Niacin to their water, just for good measure. And either tonight or tomorrow, I will experiment with different waterers. I have seen pictures on posts here of waterers made with milk jugs, and also with plastic butter tubs. My challenge of course will be to create something that gives them the depth of water they need, while not allowing them to swim in it. I’ll keep you posted.

ah, memories! i recall this all to well. Mind you the last go round, i brooded in the BARN! they still made a hot mess but at least in wasn't in my house. Plus i have mama ducks for the majority of them coming this year, with the exception of two buffs that i get to play mama for. Again, though they will be in the barn.

This has been a fun read and actually your doing great benefit to those who have yet to go to the duck side...

My first waterers are chick style with a ceramic/clay plant saucer underneath. GL! such cute babies!