is it worth it

I spend about 3 hours a day doing "stuff" with with ducks/ducklings. ( I have about 40 at the moment ) Feeding, watering, moving cleaning. changing brooders, giving them a swim, cuddling and just watching them...the house smells at times..and they sometimes keep me awake...But yep...all worth it. More than worth it..they are so gorgeous and have such wonderful personalities. I would gladly give up my full time job to stay home with them every day if I could.

 

I'm brand new to ducks. I have done chickens for a while & recently aquired (1 week ago) 3 baby ducks.

I pulled out the chick brooder, waterers and feeders. Then I found out they are not the same & ducks make a huge mess & blast through water in about 20 minutes soaking the shavings & generally smelling up the place. Not too fun.

So - I've decided since it is crazy hot outside to move them into the garage.

I have a bunch of old storm windows I screw together in a box to make a large brooder. I put their water over the floor drain (small holes) so any mess just goes down the drain & doesn't stick around to be stinky.

So far works like a charm! They are happy & dry & my shavings do not need changed 3 times per day.

I'll try to get some pics up later today.

For me - its worth it, but I've always looked for the easy way out & like to find unique solutions to things that I don't like.

 

I love chillin with my ducks. They are so cool and make great pets. I love to watch them swim and splash around. I can barely remember any bad times with my ducks.

 

so far so good with mine. ....but I only have 1. Lucky is in a plastic tote, and we change the towels and food/water 2 or 3x a day. Lucky isn't too messy with the water, I cut a semicircle out of a lid to a butter tub, and fill the tub 3/4 full with water and put the top on. Lucky can splash around, but it keeps most of the water in the container. I'm thinking about moving him to our tub in a week, the bugger is growing like the plant in 'Little Shop of Horrors'!!!

Lucky is supper sweet with us, and being the only one, doesn't stink much at all. If you are up for a bit of extra work, well worth it.

 

I'm loving raising my 3 little runners. I've had them for a week and a half. DH is enjoying it through pics from Attu, so if we can find some white runners, we'll likely end up with 2 more next spring so he can do it in person.

But my 3 are in a huge dog kennel out on my covered patio - free heat. I turn on their light at night or when it rains and after a swim.
Yeah, they are messy marvins, but they are cute, so I don't mind LOL

I have a 1 gallon waterer which now that they are bigger, I have put it in a cake pan to collect some of their overflow. Same with their food - the feeder is now in a cake pan to catch some of their mess.
The water is on a puppy pad. I'm now changing that out 2x a day because it is soaked and has lots of poop (bigger ducklings = more poop). Everything is on a towel. Towel is changed 1x a day, though I think that may move to 2x a day soon.

I was on my deck earlier trying to determine if there is a way for me to give them a space on the deck that is safe for them - away from the dogs and then wonder if I'd have to worry about crows or the occasional hawk flying that close to my house or if I'd need to give it a cover.

 

I think it's well worth it. Yeah, they can be a TON of work, depending on how many you have, but from a standpoint of having a harder breed to get like the Calls, there are times when it's difficult to acquire something unless you breed for it, or if you want more of a certain type and there are few to none available. Plus, if you raise them, they are your ducks and if you put the time into them, they will be sure the whole world knows it! One that I have, a chocolate bibbed pullet I've named "Downtown Brown", will follow me around the pen while I do chores and at shows she will stick her head out of the cage and watch me while I go down the aisle. I personally think that's pretty neat and a lot of other people get a real charge out of seeing that.

 

Get Some Duckies! once you do you'll love em. (WARNING DUCKS ARE ADDICTIVE)

 

It's the little things that makes you love them. My ducks love to play with the inground sprinklers. Today they found the old one, which has to tendency not to go down once done spraying. On duck found it and started tapping on it. It promptly went down spraying the rest of the water onto the duck. She looked at and decided that was it. Tried hard and heavy to get it back up. I love it when they are silly.

 

Like anything else, like you say they come with good and bad or maybe its sad.
Its real hard when you loose your pretty Drake (could have been a poisoned rat or snake) and have to wait forever for one to hatch, grow up and take over the flock of ducks.

We have Muscovies and they are definately family ducks. Its wonderful to watch them, be them. I let them be ducks, mate, hatch their own and take care of the ducklings. I only intervene when there is turmoil between the ducks over the ducklings or the nests. Once you get ducks started they pretty much take care of themselves. They only need you to hand out extra food, keep the waterers clean and full and the duck pool clean and full in my case, cause we don't have a pond.

Oh, and the babies need their split peas cooked and mashed and off course I have to grind them up some seed that I mix and give them some to start them off. Then off course I like to give them extra greens, daily when babies and chopped fine, at least several times a week when older. Everyone including us gets some Nutritional Yeast in their seeds (for us its pop corn). Oyster shell for chickens and Ducks and Quail, gravel (fine for the babies) on the pathway and every bird is happy. And that makes me happy. Then I can sit back and watch them tromp around the back yard being chickens and ducks. The quail do their own thing

Not to mention, between the chickens and the ducks, we have only had 2 snakes and they had killed one and didn't eat it or I wouldn't have known about it. The other one was hiding under my 4x4 spare pen. When I moved it, the snake slithered for cover as fast as it could move, cause it must have feared my ducks. THEY had been hanging around there waiting for it. They knew, I should have. Last year we killed over a dozen large snakes, this year none. Love my flock.

Had a problem with rats last spring, since the drake died, but now his young one is mature and haven't seen any new rat leavings.

So as you see, it does get easier once they get outside and grown. Actually I never brought mine into the house. I was told they were 6 weeks old when I got them and come to figure, once seeing their ducklings later, I think they were only 4 weeks old back then. They did fine in their duck house though, the weather was warm then. One thing I did learn, they like Kale but it makes their Poo really stink, so I give them Romaine mostly. I give them scratch free choice and that makes their poo not so watery. I was real frustrated with the ducks when we first got them, but it gets easier, give them time to grow up and be ducks.

Enjoy your ducklings, they won't stay little for long. They grow so fast compared to chickens.