Help!...Lots of Questions

[BickeringToast]

Sorry about the old pic-I have none of the new pics loaded



I brought these 4 home on March 1st and can only guess they were about 3 or 4 days old since ducklings/chicks are bought out within days at our TSC. That would make them 3 weeks old yesterday. All 4 have a lot of their feathers in, they started getting them just over a week ago. I read that they may be feathering a little early since they have been swimming everyday since I brought them home (always supervised, dried, and kept warm). The 4 are mostly alike in size, but I would have to say Mose & Doc are slightly smaller. Questions:

1. Daphne (yellow turning black) seems to sit a LOT. She eats, drinks, walks and swims normally, but is often sitting. They eat chick starter and I add the 100mg regular Niacin to the water. She is also the friendliest of the 4 and the loudest! Should I be concerned about all her sitting?
2. When can they live outside? I am in NO rush to get them out and their outdoor home will not even be ready for at least another week. They will have a run safe from predators and within it a protected 'house. Right now our temps here are mid-high 60's during the day and evenings in the 50's. Like I said, all 4 are pretty feathered already.
3. While I THINK Daphne is a female (simply because of the mind-boggling volume of her peeps), I have no idea with the other 3. I know their Quacks won't start for a few weeks (Niles is trying to quack and it is adorable!). If it turns out I have 2 or 3 drakes, how long do I have before this becomes a problem for the female(s)? We will be ordering 4-8 females from Metzers but that means new ducklings being raised and then integrated in with the current peeps.

Thanks for any help!!!

 

[BickeringToast]

Anyone?

 

[Kevin565]

1. Some of my ducks sat quite often. I wouldn't be too concerned about it at this age.

2. Most of my ducklings are outside by 4 weeks but I usually have heat on them if the night temps are cool. However I'm in Texas so it's almost always pretty warm here.

3. By 5 months most of my ducks are readily breeding. Some have started breeding as early as 4 months. If you have excessive males and you start seeing any breeding I would separate them until you add in more females.

 

[RileyB]

I'm not an expert by any means, but I can tell you what I've experienced (I currently have two full grown ducks, two ducklings, and 6 chickens).

1) I can't say for sure, but as long as she is eating, drinking, and acting normal I don't know that there's an issue. One of the ducklings I have right now is very lazy and constantly laying down or sitting. Although as I said, I'm not an expert, so it might indicate something else.

2) It depends how cold it is. My older ducklings were living outside full time at 4 weeks old. However, where I bought them from there were one and two week old ducks living outside (it was summer).

3) Usually at around 4 weeks old you can begin to hear the difference between the male and female quacking.
Too many males would become a problem at around the time the birds sexually mature. For mine older two this was around 5 months of age. Ever since then my male rouen has mated with any duck or chicken he can find.

 

[Going Quackers]

Sorry about the old pic-I have none of the new pics loaded



I brought these 4 home on March 1st and can only guess they were about 3 or 4 days old since ducklings/chicks are bought out within days at our TSC. That would make them 3 weeks old yesterday. All 4 have a lot of their feathers in, they started getting them just over a week ago. I read that they may be feathering a little early since they have been swimming everyday since I brought them home (always supervised, dried, and kept warm). The 4 are mostly alike in size, but I would have to say Mose & Doc are slightly smaller. Questions:

1. Daphne (yellow turning black) seems to sit a LOT. She eats, drinks, walks and swims normally, but is often sitting. They eat chick starter and I add the 100mg regular Niacin to the water. She is also the friendliest of the 4 and the loudest! Should I be concerned about all her sitting?
2. When can they live outside? I am in NO rush to get them out and their outdoor home will not even be ready for at least another week. They will have a run safe from predators and within it a protected 'house. Right now our temps here are mid-high 60's during the day and evenings in the 50's. Like I said, all 4 are pretty feathered already.
3. While I THINK Daphne is a female (simply because of the mind-boggling volume of her peeps), I have no idea with the other 3. I know their Quacks won't start for a few weeks (Niles is trying to quack and it is adorable!). If it turns out I have 2 or 3 drakes, how long do I have before this becomes a problem for the female(s)? We will be ordering 4-8 females from Metzers but that means new ducklings being raised and then integrated in with the current peeps.

Thanks for any help!!!

so darn cute!

1. ducklings can be a bit bursts of energy, if it's acting/growing normal otherwise your probably fine. I feed flock raiser here, so i have never need to add a thing.

2. Your temps sound dreamy lol We were -14C this morning, i have 4 couple day old ducklings out in a mini barn with their mama and a heat lamp, so i would definitely say if you have your housing set to go, they can go in there home. Get a thermometer out in it so you know where you stand.

3. It's said 2-3 ducks per drake. My drake babies last year started getting pesty at about 2.5-3mths old... not full on but shall we just say it was obvious they were boys.

 

[BickeringToast]

1. Some of my ducks sat quite often. I wouldn't be too concerned about it at this age.

2. Most of my ducklings are outside by 4 weeks but I usually have heat on them if the night temps are cool. However I'm in Texas so it's almost always pretty warm here.

3. By 5 months most of my ducks are readily breeding. Some have started breeding as early as 4 months. If you have excessive males and you start seeing any breeding I would separate them until you add in more females.

Thanks!

We're in Georgia so very warm nights are not too far off. My 4-pack will probably be 5+ weeks old by the time their house/pen is ready for move-in, and day & night temps should be pretty good by then.

The hatch date for the new group of females will be April 1st. That will make them only about a month younger than our current ducklings which I hope will be a positive when we start integrating them.

Thanks again for the info!

 

[BickeringToast]

Thanks Everyone! I have developed a duck-addiction and BYC is definitely my enabler!!