New Duck Owner, Begrudgingly.

[teriz1091]

My husband went to Tractor Supply without me today (bad idea), & came home with 2 ducklings.

We bought 4 new chicks for our egg layers flock last week. He put the ducklings in with these chicks. They have 22% crumbles, leftover from our batch of broilers. They’re on pine shavings with a heat lamp.

I don’t have a clue about raising ducklings. I don’t want ducks. But, here they are. I don’t have a clue what breed they are. They’re yellow. He doesn’t know if they were straight run or sexed, he didn’t ask.

We currently have a flock of 5 laying hens (plus the 4 new chicks). The hens are free ranged every day, & return to their 15’x10’ pen at night. They have 2 small coops that they share, one is a modified old dog house, the other we built to house our original 3 hens. The hens are fed a 16% layer feed & thrown scratch, but they forage for most of their diet.

We had a not good experience with ducks in the past. We used to live in town with our trio of laying hens. They lived in a 20’x10’ pen with the small coop, & would get turned loose in the yard in the evenings. Someone gave us 2 grown male Pekin ducks. It was a disaster. They were filthy, dug mud holes in the pen, & made an awful mess of their kiddie pool immediately after we filled it, then would go muck up the water bowl so the hens wouldn’t want to drink. We gave them back after a couple weeks.

My husband swears that it will be different with them now that we have land. I’m not confident. I’m envisioning our chicken pen being turned into a slimy, hole-filled mud pit again. He says that they will just waddle down to the pond to swim & come home at night. I would like that, but doubt that they’ll waddle the approximately 1/4 mile to the pond & back.

What did he get us into?? I was unhappy that he brought them home, but here they are. What tips do you have for an unwilling duck raising beginner? Thanks in advance!

 

[GldnValleyHens]

@duluthralphie can be of great help to you! Just kidding! Don't listen to his DUX advice! Your ducklings are probably Pekin.... They should be moved from the chicks. Ducklings are very messy and will create an unhealthy, soggy environment for them. They need their own separate brooder, I believe. I warn you for more mess, very sorry!

You could house the then grown ducks with your chickens, but they most likely may want to stay in the pond. You could consider building a coop down by the pond, if they are locked up every night. Ducks can be very fun, but they turn a tablespoon of water into a mudhole. I love my Call ducks, but they are messy too.

 

[sylviethecochin]

My dad's ducks walk an eighth mile to the pond, and back if he's been putting feed out in the evenings. They do like to poke holes in the mushy parts of the yard, but that's not a problem, as no one ever goes into his backyard anyway. It's definitely not noticeable.

I'd keep them out of the chicken coop, unless they're free-ranging during the day. Ducks can mess up a run like no one's business. You could put your doghouse coop out by the pond for the ducks, if you can make it predator-secure.

Feed store ducks're almost certainly straight run, and yellow means probably either pekin or muscovy (there are other yellow duck breeds, obviously, but those are the ones our TSC is most likely to have.)

As for raising ducks, have you seen the tips on keeping the waterers cleaner? See this thread, and pay special attention to Amiga's post.

EDT: You can definitely raise ducklings and chicks together if you're careful about the water situation. We've done it repeatedly. Just make sure that the ground isn't wet enough for the chicks to get chilled. See the above thread, and don't set up a waterer that a chick could drown in.

Also, supplement vitamin B3 for ducklings. Chick feed often doesn't contain enough niacin for ducklings. It doesn't matter if the chicks get extra (water soluble vitamins don't accumulate) but the ducklings do need it.

Good luck!

 

[Pyxis]

Sorry you got stuck with ducks you don't want.

So let me start with the bad news: those yellow ducklings are most likely pekins, like the kind you didn't like before. And they are straight run, because I don't know of any Tractor Supply ever getting sexed female ducklings. So that means they could both be drakes. And if that happens, they may decide that they want to mate with your hens, especially since you are raising them with chicks. And drakes mating with hens will seriously injure or kill them, thanks to differences in anatomy. So that means that if that happens, you're looking at having to have separate housing for them and keep them apart at all times.

Will they walk a 1/4 mile to the pond? Maybe, if they know it's there. Will they come back at night? Nope, not at first, not until you teach them routine and train them to to it. And that means going out every night, somehow getting them off the pond, and herding them back to their housing until they get the idea and start doing it on their own. And again, that's only if they will actually go that far, which they might not.

And if they don't, that means setting up a pool for them. And they can and will make an unholy muddy mess with the pool and will turn the area immediately around it into a mud pit.

And even with the pond and the pool, they will still play in every puddle they find, digging holes into the mud.

Ducks are fun, but they definitely can have their downsides. If you're not okay with the possibilities outlined above, it's better that you sell them now and save yourself the hassle.

If you do want to keep them, there are a couple things to consider. They are VERY messy with water and will soak the brooder. They can deal with that until you get it changed, but the chicks might get chilled and die if you don't keep on top of it. You'll also want to look into making a duckling waterer to cut down on the water mess.

Chick feed on its own doesn't have enough niacin for ducklings. So you'll want to get them either an all flock feed like Purina Flock Raiser that has more niacin, or pick up a niacin supplement such as Brewer's Yeast to add to the food. Otherwise, they could develop severe legs issues and even become completely lame.

 

[teriz1091]

Update on our pair of ducklings. They’re 6 weeks old now. I still don’t know what sex they are, but they’re huge. They are not the friendliest, despite trying to tame them as ducklings. They prefer that we keep our distance.

They are living with the 4 chicks we got shortly before them, & they get along great. We have a kid pool outside of their pen for them to use when turned loose daily. They have 2 waterers in their pen, & haven’t made as large of a mess as I was expecting.

They haven’t figured out to put themselves to bed at night. They just plop down together outside of their pen, & we have to go herd them back inside. Unfortunately, they seem to be teaching the chicks to stay out, as well. Not going to bed will get them killed around here, but I don’t know how to get them in the habit.

 

[HeatherD42]

Ducks do not put themselves to bed, you will always have to herd them in. I call " Inside, ducks!" to mine and they learn the verbal command.

I should think you'd be able to voice sex by now. Look up videos of ducks talking to see if you can tell. If you had girls, I would have expected them to start quacking by now

 

[HeatherD42]

Do you have pictures? Mallard derived breeds and Muscovies have very different voice characteristics

 

[teriz1091]

I kind of figured they weren’t going to put themselves to bed, but I wish they wouldn’t teach the chicks the same. There’s been a few nights that we had to shoo them out of their pool, & the chicks were in a huddle next to the pool trying to stay close to the ducks.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Some of my yr old chickens like to try and stay out late with the Runners who are the last to always go in I have been herding all including the chickens inside. I don't want any to end up dinner. Try using a special treat like dried meal worms and whistling or calling a specific word like bed time. Ducks like routine so get them into one same time each day.

I can get mine into a smaller fenced in area and that helps with getting them in with out trouble.

 

[HeatherD42]

So, I guess they're Pekins? Does anyone else have an opinion?