My ducks are picky eaters! Help!

[Msbunny3307]

Hey everyone, so I'm kind of new to all this duck stuff and could use some assistance!

I got 2 baby ducks about 3 months ago and raised them on the baby duck feed like I'm supposed to but then around 7ish weeks old they barely touched the feed and were just hungry all the time! I was worried about them so I looked into adding treats, so far they really REALLY like peas but will also accept lettuce, rice, potato, beans, shredded carrot, Oats, blueberries etc but rarely want any feed!i bought them some scratch grains and leave it out all the time and I do see that "some" of it disappears but most of the time they just want peas and lettuce and quack non stop until they get it!
I know this is not ideal so what do I do? Do I try a different feed? Is there some vitamin supplement that might help make up for the less than perfect diet?
Sometimes I try mushing peas in with the grains buy I don't know of that's enough to help

 

[Orca5094]

What's happened is they've gotten spoiled with all the treats and are choosing to eat those instead of their feed. Which you have clearly figured out already. So, what to do now? First off, scratch feed is not appropriate for ducks. They do not eat most of the things in it typically, and it is not nutritionally sufficient for ducks (scratch is basically a treat for chickens). I would get them some proper pellet feed and lay off the treats for awhile. They will probably protest by not eating the pellets and waiting for their treats instead, but you might have to display some tough love here. I think at first I would give them a tiny bit of one of their treats mixed with their new pellets once or twice a day so that they'll at least pick at and try the new stuff. Then they just get pellets the rest of the time (no treats!). Sooner or later they WILL get hungry enough to eat more and more of the pellets and you should be back on track. Once they are eating the pellets good you can add some treats in again, but give it in very limited amounts and just once or twice a day.

 

[tmorgan46]

Completely agree with Orca5094 on this one. We ran into a similar case moving from chick starter (without medication) to waterfowl pellets. They get hungry enough, they'll eat. And we're running into it again when we introduced fermented feed this past week. Ducks and geese won't touch it, but the chickens can't eat it fast enough. They'll come around though. They always do

 

[Msbunny3307]

Thank you Orca for your advice! I had no idea scratch feed is not okay for ducks, I asked the lady on the farm I got the duckies from all kinds of questions about how to properly feed them and she told me they eat the same stuff chickens do so I found the scratch grains at tractor supply and on the back It had feeding instructions for ducks so I thought I was doing a good thing! I'll buy them brand new feed tonight, IL make sure to get pellets and I'll start being a tough ducky mom! Their health comes first
So thank you so much!