muscovy573
Chirping
- Dec 21, 2016
- 33
- 28
- 79
Update:
After losing all 10 of my first ducklings to some very dumb things I should of been aware of, I took another approach and it has worked WONDERFULLY! I have (3) month old ducks I just set out in a pen (will get pictures to add tonight, my phone was dead) and (4) week old ducklings.
Originally, I let the first mom to go broody keep the ducklings thinking all would fare well. I was wrong. They got through the fence in some places and my parents dog ate a majority of them and the 3 that lived, my male killed.
Still not entirely sure what the deal was but i can only contribute it to them being in too small of a pen for all that activity and i decided to make a brooder for the second mommas ducklings. It worked great! the only issue was the first momma hid some of her eggs in the second ones nest and i missed them. Thus the month old and week old differences. Luckily I had another pen to put the month olds while i worked on their outdoor pen.
This is my brooder set up:
Bought a plastic tote and had some screening left for a cut out for the light. Plenty of room to walkaround, easy to clean/heat and the water/feed fit great as well. Im thinking of building a larger one down the road as 4 of these birds at a month old was too much and they ended up makng a mess of things. I did add in screws and attached wires on both ends of the feed pan to adjust the height as needed.
Since these guys moved in, i moved the big guys to a small rabbit hutch for a few days:
Again, a bad stroke of luck, one of the ducklings died so now i have (3) month olds.
These are the (4) babies in the brooder:
Here are the parents:
As stated before, I am in the slow process of building a coop for the trio and kids to be able to free range. Its a slow process because I am not made of money and as of lately time either, but I am doing the best I can with what I do have! I will upload a photo of the 3 month olds in their new outdoor pen this evening after work. I'm hoping to transfer the parents to it from time to time to allow them to get out on some fresh grass!
Thanks for looking!
After losing all 10 of my first ducklings to some very dumb things I should of been aware of, I took another approach and it has worked WONDERFULLY! I have (3) month old ducks I just set out in a pen (will get pictures to add tonight, my phone was dead) and (4) week old ducklings.
Originally, I let the first mom to go broody keep the ducklings thinking all would fare well. I was wrong. They got through the fence in some places and my parents dog ate a majority of them and the 3 that lived, my male killed.
Still not entirely sure what the deal was but i can only contribute it to them being in too small of a pen for all that activity and i decided to make a brooder for the second mommas ducklings. It worked great! the only issue was the first momma hid some of her eggs in the second ones nest and i missed them. Thus the month old and week old differences. Luckily I had another pen to put the month olds while i worked on their outdoor pen. This is my brooder set up:
Bought a plastic tote and had some screening left for a cut out for the light. Plenty of room to walkaround, easy to clean/heat and the water/feed fit great as well. Im thinking of building a larger one down the road as 4 of these birds at a month old was too much and they ended up makng a mess of things. I did add in screws and attached wires on both ends of the feed pan to adjust the height as needed.
Since these guys moved in, i moved the big guys to a small rabbit hutch for a few days:
Again, a bad stroke of luck, one of the ducklings died so now i have (3) month olds.
These are the (4) babies in the brooder:
Here are the parents:
As stated before, I am in the slow process of building a coop for the trio and kids to be able to free range. Its a slow process because I am not made of money and as of lately time either, but I am doing the best I can with what I do have! I will upload a photo of the 3 month olds in their new outdoor pen this evening after work. I'm hoping to transfer the parents to it from time to time to allow them to get out on some fresh grass!
Thanks for looking!
My son LOVES them and my daughter will eat them no issues as long as no one mentions it.
