Help. Baby ducks dieing.

[babalubird]

HOW DO YOU KEEP THEM ALIVE AND DRY. We tried 5gal
Waferer w/ round trough around it. Tjey constantly got in water and cold. So in desperation we bought 1 gal. Buckets w/ 2 nipples each. They still soak their saw dust. Thermomeger sayz 97 during day but I suspect it dips loaer in early morning hrs. We're having helacious temps for Texas. Even have apace heater in as well as 250 watt heat lamp. How do we keep them dry abd warm? Ideas please!

 

[HollyDuckFarmer]

Ok, you've got a lot of bases to cover. There is a very good article here that will tell you just about everything you need to know about raising healthy ducklings. When someone gets the link posted, please spend some time reading, I promise it will give you knowledge and insight and you'll be able to keep happier, healthier ducks.

Ok, first thing off is what are your ducklings ages? Age makes a difference when it comes to the temperature they need. One week old ducklings require a brooder temp of 95'F, two week old ducklings need 90'F, three-week-olds need 85'F, and as each week of age passes, you will need to lower the temperature in the brooder by 5'F.

What is your brooder setup? A pic is helpful.

As you know, water is important, but 5 gal bucket is way, way too much. Ducklings can and do drown very easily in less water than that. So can adult sized, full grown ducks, for that matter. For ducklings, I have never ever left them alone with anything other than a 1 gal bell waterer. With the style waterers that I use, the water depth available is never more than 3/4"-1" deep.

After these things are addressed, then you think about outside temperatures in your area. In a perfect world, your ducklings are in and protected and the outside temps have no effect because the ducklings aren't around them.

HTH.
Edited for spelling & to say post back update please.
Edited Again to include link.

GO READ HERE https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/750869/raising-and-caring-for-ducklings#post_10611711

 

[blondiebee181]

Agreed with Hollyduck. Are you talking about baby ducklings or older ducks? The biggest problem I sense is that you need to adjust your watering system. The fact about ducks is, they dabble, drink, play in and poop water almost constantly so it's important to eliminate as much wet mess as possible. When my ducks were babies, I used a mason jar type waterer that was only 3/4" or so deep that they could drink from, but not get into...and I placed that on top of an upturned small dish so it was slightly elevated which helps a lot. Another good idea is to place the waterer inside another slightly larger shallow dish to collect the water they dabble out.
Ducks can swim by the time they hatch practically, but they DO NOT get water proof feathers until they are older so if they get into water and swim, you must watch them and only allow them to swim for a few minutes at a time. Then you need to towel them off and put them under the lamp. When my babies were little, I had a red heat lamp in their brooder, but ducks are usually quite a bit fattier than chickens and after 6 weeks or so I had the lamp elevated pretty high because they were too warm, but this depends on whether you are keeping yours inside, in the garage, outside...etc. Also if you are using shavings.....they get messy really easy. I used horse-stall type wood pellets which are waaay more absorbent, just FYI. I wrote an article last year about keeping ducks and chicks that explains all this in detail. Good luck

 

[Amiga]

Ducks are waterfowl, so managing the water takes a bit of getting used to, trial and error and trial again. I agree with the points made by HollyDuckFarmer and blondiebee181.

Sad to read of your loss, but many many of us raise ducklings in all kinds of climates.

The link HollyDuckFarmer gave you is very useful. Some kind of watering station to catch splash works very well with ducklings.

tweetysvoice and OldGuy43 have posted about their setups, and 70%cocoa has a good one, too.

 

[Amiga]

About the temperatures - Storey's Guide recommends 90F the first week, dropping by 5F each week, pretty much. I would get a thermometer in there and check, they will die if they are kept too hot.

 

[HollyDuckFarmer]

Go with Amiga's temperatures. I remembered incorrectly.