Need duck help -- found a baby

[countrybum]

Congratulations for stepping in to help the baby. You will be fine, read my above post.
First off, you can feed your duck chick feed, even the medicated will not hurt it.
I will post a picture in a bit of my pen area for my babies and you will see I also have mallards - which I purchased from the co-op. I breed them, keep their eggs to hatch and butcher the babies for meat when old enough. No it is not illegal.

1.) What about swimming?
Go to the dollar store and buy a little kiddie pool, then build a ramp for the baby to go in and out of the water. But you have to teach him to use it.

2.) If the duck leaves it leaves. You are doing right by him.

3.) You duck when bigger a few months old, can be in with the chickens. Just give him a small doghouse to sleep in with straw. My ducks are in with my chickens and my babies grow up with my chicks, etc. They have their pool until the find the lake.

4.) How should I offer these greens and how do I make him interested in them? Offer them with his food, if he does not eat it by the time you go to bed remove it. Just offer a teaspoon at a time.

5.) I read online last night not to give dry duck food to them. Do they mean not to give it dry even if it is starter food with such little granules? He will be fine with starter crumbles, all of my ducks eat chick food. Just make sure he has plenty of water.

6.) Should we ask the chicken supply place to throw in a mallard baby when we get our chicks next month so that this little one has one of his own to grow up with so he's not lonely (for one of his own. Give him a small stuffed animal to cuddle with and what you are talking about is exactly what I did for my goose. His buddies will be here either tomorrow or friday. It cannot hurt to get him a duck buddy. Since I could not get Canadian geese, I ordered African.

7.) Should we switch to pine shavings at this point as you would chicks? Use hay or straw. I used hay and they nibble at it, which is okay, straw is in my chicken coop where my adult ducks are.
Good luck and hope this answers your questions.

 

[Duck Keeper]

Quote:
If wild mallards are illegal to own, then why do a lot of hatcheries sell mallard chicks?

I owned 6 wild mallards last year. I purchased them from the co-op. I will let you know in advance, your duck may fly off. All of mine did. Since yours is alone, it may stay.

I get so aggravated when someone post about a wild duckling or a wild gosling and constantly gets told it is illegal. I posted about my Canadian goose egg I hatched and I am still raising the baby with my ducks, and the Wildlife rescue has not come knocking on my door.

It is illegal to mess with their nest and hunt them during breeding season and nesting season.

This is a Canadian gosling, a wild mallard and 3 of my other ducklings. I have more mallards hatched and hatching. The goose egg was set in the middle of nowhere and I took it and put it in my incubator. Yes, it hatched.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/15838_captured_2009-5-1_00000.jpg

I too have owned mallards. From a hatchery.

They clip their back toes to identify them as hatchery stock.


A third (or later) generation mallard is no longer considered wild. Therefore, since the hatcheries have been breeding them for ages, they are now 'domesticated' mallards.

 

[countrybum]

Here is what I do for during the day:

It is just chicken that I can roll back up and move around the yard to allow the babies to get clover and grass. Click on picture to enlarge.

Here are my babies. The biggest is the Canadian and the others are African Geese, they just arrived today. Puffy top I bought from the co-op, the red and the chocolate are a couple from my ducks and there are 2 Mallards, one standing and the other is lying down and can't be seen.


Since they are small I give containers (about 2 inches high) of water for them to splash around in and play in. In the next month or so, their house will be over there and a pen to let them learn to go back in at night. After that, they will not have a fence and they will be allowed full time access to the lake.

 

[jenjscott]

It's illegal to even own shed feathers from wild mallards, so imagine the consequences of stealing a duckling from it's mother in the wild. o_o;

In Arkansas we hunt mallards along with other ducks, so it is not illegal to have their feathers. Eagles, yes. HOWEVER. you are`required to have a federal rehabilitators license to rehab them to return them to the wild. Now since there is genetically no difference between wild and domestic wild, they still fall under game and fish commision. but domestics may not be "turned out". Check with your state`s equivalent to Game and Fish Commision for regulations -reguarding this duck. You might want to do it anonomously because sometimes the rules are hard to deal with, You may have to give it up to a rehabilitator, sometimes the animal is seized, then if there is no qualified rehab, it is euthanized. Doesn`t make since, but that`s how it is.​