Help with duck food

[jenna elizabeth]

Pellets or crumbles for ducks
Suggestions for duck food from tractor supply. I have 4 females and one male!

 

[noodledog]

Can you get Purina flock raiser/another all flock feed?

 

[RShayne]

How old are they?

1 to 2 weeks old - Go with a high protein crumble (22% or 24%) if you can get it and chick grit.

a. DuMOR Chick Starter 24% would be my first choice with brewer's yeast added. Changed this, just could not stand the low protein.

b. Nature's Best Organic Feeds Duck Crumble Not happy with the low protein but you wont have to add brewer's yeast.

This thread has more info: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/niacin-deficiency-in-waterfowl.1367557/

3 week old - I mix a bit of their old feed with chick starter (18% to 20%)

4 - 7 week old - Cut the high protein out and only chick starter and I make a mash out of the chick starter (just add water) and also have dry chick starter always available. This is also a good time to let them forage, just supervised.

7 week to 4.5 months old - Flock Raiser Pellets and grit

4.5 months old - layer pellets.

 

[Ratchnick]

Any type of waterfowl starter for ducklings, chick starter is a headache because you have to suppliment niacin to keep your ducks from going lame. The suppliments are also expensive so it will come out more expensive then just getting premium feed like purena or mazuri

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

If your ducks accept pellets, i can only urge you to go with pellets instead of crumbles! With pellets there is much less feed wasted. Try to figure out if there's a local feed-mill around, usually the feed is much fresher and you are supporting a local business.