How much does it cost to feed 15 ducks a week?

[Miss Lydia]

Quote:
Okay i don't show my Muscovies, but I want them to be as healthy as possible and their starting into molt now so you reccomend puppy chow along with their regular feed which is Purina Flock Raiser, they will be getting alot of protein right. Is that safe?

 

[Rosecomb-Ryan]

I dont know what everyone else will say but I have NEVER had a Muscovy die.. except for a couple ducklings. But never had an Adult die. So I mist be doing something right...

 

[Miss Lydia]

Quote:
I wasn't meaning it might kill them lol, I just wasn't sure if the extra protein might hurt their kidneys? but I will get a bag and try it for sure. and instead of scratch grains wet cob? and do you mix the wet cob in with the reg. feed? or feed it separate?

 

[Oregon Blues]

[[[......what is wet cobb.....]]]]]

COB is corn, oats, barley. I don't know what the extra "B" in COBB might be. Wet COB is with feed grade molasses added. Dry COB is just grain with no molasses. When I buy COB, I buy the dry, so I can see the grain and I know they aren't covering up inferior grain by covering it with molasses. Molasses is supposed to be a good source of iron, but it is basically sugar, which means empty calories.

I feed a bit of cheap cat food because it contains animal protein and I think that ducks are meant to be eating animal protein, like fish, which is in the cat food. I don't feed very much, though.

 

[Rosecomb-Ryan]

Every waterfowl person has told me to feed wet cob, not once had anyone said feed it dry.. It was a spelling error SORRY

... I was told that dog food is much better for them than cat food??? I have no idea why, but of yeah.. my ducks get gold fish twice a week...

 

[Miss Lydia]

Quote:
What i'd like to know is do you mix the dry or wet cobb into the regular feed or have a separate feeder? and on the cat food, you say cheap cat food and only a bit, is this once a week or once a month? and how much is a bit for 9ducks? just looking for ways to inhance an already good diet. Thanks.

 

[Rosecomb-Ryan]

I mix the wet cobb in 1/3 of their regular food... so when I go to feed I put one coffee can of wet cob and 2 cans of thier regular feed.. When I feed the dog food, they have a seperate bowl, I give each pen a plastic cup full every day.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Quote:
Thanks Ryan, appreciate your info.

 

[Oregon Blues]

I don't normally feed COB to my ducks. It certainly wouldn't hurt them, though.

They get a locally milled poultry pellet. I feed about 1 cup of cat food every day, and that gets mixed into their pellets. There are 50 ducks and 7 geese that are sharing that, so they don't get much. The very first thing they do is to pick out the cat food and eat that.

The cat food I use contains a lot of grain, which means it is pretty worthless for cats, but grain is fine for ducks. I buy the one that is made with fish, except for right before slaughter time, and then the ducks get the one made with meat meal. I don't know if the fish would taint the meat and I don't want to find out by ruining 20 ducks.

You can purchase cat food that is nearly all meat or fish, if you want to spend the money for it.

The dog food should be fine in small amounts, too. Again, the cheaper it is, the more grain it will contain. It tends to be lower protein than cat food, so that is better. Cat food comes in really small pieces, easy for ducks to swallow, but you can buy some brands of dog food in small pieces.

I think of it in this way: the poultry pellets I feed are a complete and balanced diet. If I feed a lot of anything else, I risk throwing the diet out of balance. So the additions they get are small. A couple of tablespoons of flax seed mixed into their dinner, for the omega oil it contains (that's for everybody, not for each one). They get the occasional slice of bread as a treat, like a piece of candy for a child, not like it is food. They get the greens they can pull, and I bring them all the weeds that I pull.

I am working on getting a system set up to sprout oats for greenery in the coming winter. I haven't gotten the kinks worked out to where I can provide a steady stream of fresh greens, but hope to have it figured out before snow flies.

 

[Lil 2 U]

When I was a kid my folks kept about 80 chickens chickens on a farm that grew corn as a crop so we never bought any feed, they all got rough ground or whole corn kernels, and free ranged all day for all the greenery and insects they could find, and we had fat chickens, but we had lots of space and no near roads or neighbors. I struggle with sustainablility if you have to buy chicken and duck feed for the smaller scale backyard farm. Has anyone been successful with growing crops just for their birds?