Hi all!

Cozynak

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Hi all! I'm new to BYC and duck raising. I picked up two runner ducklings a little over a week ago and have just fallen head over heals in love with these lil guys! They are now 18 days old and growing crazy fast. I am feeding them cooked oatmeal and scrambled eggs in the morning and they get ration w/15-16% at night does this sound ok for the age? :D
 
No, it does not. Eggs and oatmeal just aren't nutritionally viable, they need more (oatmeal in particular loses a lot of its vitamins during cooking and a duck won't be able to extract what little it has for the short time it spends in the GI tract). This also likely means that they aren't getting enough niacin, since as I mentioned a lot of it gets cooked out. Some duck owners say to mix UNCOOKED oatmeal in with starter crumb if a suitable maintenance feed cannot be found, but it is meant purely as a temporary solution.

You need to find dedicated waterfowl feed like Mazuri or Purina. At that age they should be weaned off of high-protein starter crumble (20-21%) to a lower protein maintenance crumble or food with (16-18%). Ideally they should also be getting their first greens at that age along with grit to help them digest it all. Kale is a good option, so is lettuce. Spinach is a bit controversial, I'd avoid it in such young duckies.
 
Thanks for the help! That's too bad about the oatmeal though, they lick their feeder clean at breakfast lol. Greens and crumble it is then, they'll adjust.
 
If you can't get a dedicated water fowl crumble (we couldn't) you can sprinkle brewer's yeast on non-medicated chicken crumble, or put niacin in their drinking water (we did the latter along with probiotics and electrolytes)

And...
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