How much do I feed my 8 week old pekins?

[dacdeihl]

I have nine pekin ducks, two mallards. I was feeding them 7 lbs per day. I talked with a lady at the local TSC and she said it was too much, so now I feed them about 4. Their poo has turned to grass green. I'm guessing this is better and it means that they are forraging?
So how much is one supposed to feed them.

Also, I built their house two feet off of the ground to give them shade in the sun. They love that, but they won't go up the ramp at night. In stead they gather together on their little pond. I know that this is natural behavior, but how do I get them to go into their house at night?

 

[Amiga]

As far as numbers go, I am not sure we can say always and only X pounds per day per duck. It depends on what else they are foraging, whether they are laying, and so forth.

But there are some rules of thumb. Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks has a nice table giving guidelines. I won't reprint the whole thing here, but for Pekins it looks like .6 pounds of 16% protein feed (3 weeks prior and during laying season) is recommended. Doing quick arithmetic, let's round your flock to 10 Pekin equivalents. 10 times .6 is 6 - six pounds of feed. Only one pound less than you are feeding.

Then there is the way the food is offered - whether it is offered once or twice a day, or free choice all day, or free choice 24/7.

I offer my eleven nine-week-old runners who have been indoors quite a bit due to weather the last few days about 5 cups of ration in the morning. Some days they have finished it by noon, some days not. If they finish it, I give them another 5 cups. I also give them a few peas once or twice a day, and a few days a week I give them a big salad.

I hope this helps.

Getting them inside often requires bribes. What are their favorite treats?

 

[dacdeihl]

So five pounds per day really is enough. That helps.
As far a treats, they only get their food a free choice through out the day. When gardening season comes they will be getting plenty of treats. They are going to free range as soon as they are off their starter feed.

Do you have chickens as well? Why I ask is when the ducks are off of their starter feed I was going to put out pellets so my free range chickens don't gorge themselves on the crumbles. Can ducks to ok on pellets?

 

[Amiga]

Well, let's back up a bit.

How old are these ducks? About how big are they?

I fed mine crumbles till they were two to three weeks old, then switched to the small grower pellets.

 

[dacdeihl]

Sorry, they are around 7 weeks old. They are on starter / grower crumbles. I was going to switch them next week to pellets. They are good size birds. I would say almost full grown, but I never had full grown pekin before so I don't know exactly how big they get.

 

[Amiga]

My ducks have done fine on Nutrena grower/maintenance pellets. What kind of pellets will you be using?

 

[dacdeihl]

Dumor is the only brand I can find locally. It works fine on my chickens however they are free range with pellets offered as free choice in the coop.

 

[Amiga]

There are some topics on the duck forum that are all about feeding. Perhaps you can do a search and find them. There was one quite recent that had some excellent information.