I'm stupid about ducks

[dangerouschicken]

My ducks give me the evil eye. I think they know my fate for them

 

[brewmiss96]

the guy at my farm store said that the girl ducks are louder (peep more) than the boys... donno if this is true or not, because mine make the same amount of noise even though I know they had different colored leg bands when I got them.

 

[Leslie In North Pole]

Ducks are not usually sexed at an early age as they all peep at about the same level. It won't be until they are well over a month that you will notice the females starting to do a true quack and the males developing a couple of curly feathers on their tales.

Only feed unmediated feeds to ducklings as they have tremendous appetites and can be poisoned by the medications building up in their livers. In my area, unmediated feeds aren't available so I usually use a broiler feed for the first few weeks and then switch them to a lower protein feed to avoid "angel wing" from developing, you may even be able to get a waterfowl maintenance feed. As to water containers, I use a margarine or potato salad container modified like this:

to water them. It is deep enough for them to drink from and wash their nostrils out and helps lessen the mess they make as they shake their heads.

Ducklings shouldn't be allowed to swim unsupervised before they are feathered at or about 4 weeks of age as they won't have enough natural oils coming from their oil gland in their tail to water proof their outer feathers. Also, make sure that if you do set a pool of any type for them, that there is something they can climb on to when they want to jump out as it is possible for them to drown if they get too tired and they splash the water level too low.

To be honest, the only stupid questions are the ones you don't ask. As to sources on the web, there are so many of them. Doing a web search using Google and the phrase "raising ducks" will pull up close to 200,000 links. Several of these sites have awesome information on raising ducks and most have it in an easy format to follow.

 

[Katy]

I've always fed my ducklings feed with amprolium in it which is referred to as medication, but is a preventative against cocci.

I also always let mine swim with me supervising from the time they're a couple of days old. They do get waterlogged easily and chill, so at first it's only for a few minutes at a time. Make sure they have access to their heat lamp to dry off after their swim. After about a week they have access 24/7 to water in a paint roller tray plus other water for drinking. As has already been said it's important for the drinking water to be deep enough for them to submerse their heads so they can keep their nostrils clean.

 

[AussieSharon]

Quote:
I agree, this book is wonderful. I borrowed it from my local library so many times I finally had to buy my own copy.

 

[Leslie In North Pole]

Ducklings and ducks have a natural tolerance to coccistats and especially using rubbermaid totes for brooding, you can keep exposure to a minimum as they are easy to sterilize and this is a disease that is spread through contaminated stool.

 

[Henrietta23]

Quote:
Yup, I got a copy before I got my two ducklings and I refer to it a lot! Mine are eating turkey/game bird starter but the feed store people said they could also eat non-medicated chick starter. Keeping them dry is nearly impossible I'm finding. They walk through the waterer (one of the red plastic ones you screw on to a quart mason jar) constantly.