New to duck life any advice?

[Momma_duck]

It

The heat bulb has no light to it, its a regular heat bulb. I have a heat lamp we used for the baby silkies, all turned out to be roos :/. The actual heat lamp it's self came from one of my reptiles I have as a back up, it has a clamp attacked to it so I have it clamped on the cage and I can easily move it up and down. The bulb it's self I checked with my thermometer gun, when I point it at the bulb it reads 100 degrees. So i didn't put down far, I put my hand up it until I feel the heat, and re check the temp under it. The first 4 days there box was 95. Then they would never go in it. So I moved there lamp up, and waited 20 minutes , rechecked the temperature and it was 89, they finally went inside, and now they don't even go under it anymore really there all spaced out right now sleeping. The bully duckling likes the randomly wake up and walk all over them all. Sometimes I have to move him because he will climb on top of them and go to sleep, then you can hear them yelping so I will go in there and make him get up and there all fine again. Some of them, are getting white, there loosing there yellow.

Well you have a circus going on there lol. What kind of heat bulb are you using? Red has a calming effect on poultry white doesn’t.

I read there not aloud outside to stay until all there big feathers are in, and until it's warm enough. They all seem to being super good with my house being on 70 today. And they will be housed in my check coop (we had literally 10 roos so I sold them they were super mean attacked you just for bringing food) but my coop is massive, it also has drop cords I use for it to have heat and I put fans in the ceiling for summer to help them stay cool. So it has full electric. the inside has 10 laying boxes built into the coop, then I built little cute steps inside for them to get the boxes, and it has a cute tunnel thing for them to go freely outside to a fence attached to a door with a lock. And I adding extra fencing when the duckling's are ready, so they can free roam my garden, and around the whole back yard too. We also got 3 kiddie pools I am going to dig holes to make them in ground and my hubby is getting PVC pipe to help me make them have there own drainage system to keep them clean. Just for the duckling's. Does that sound okay for the duckling's ?

 

[Momma_duck]

Your going to have to post some pictures of these birds! They may not need heat with there being that many for Pekin and white layer 89 is way to hot.

Yes i have the heat lamp, way up so there not getting a lot of it, I can post pictures after dinner if you like of them all

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

I read there not aloud outside to stay until all there big feathers are in, and until it's warm enough. They all seem to being super good with my house being on 70 today. And they will be housed in my check coop (we had literally 10 roos so I sold them they were super mean attacked you just for bringing food) but my coop is massive, it also has drop cords I use for it to have heat and I put fans in the ceiling for summer to help them stay cool. So it has full electric. the inside has 10 laying boxes built into the coop, then I built little cute steps inside for them to get the boxes, and it has a cute tunnel thing for them to go freely outside to a fence attached to a door with a lock. And I adding extra fencing when the duckling's are ready, so they can free roam my garden, and around the whole back yard too. We also got 3 kiddie pools I am going to dig holes to make them in ground and my hubby is getting PVC pipe to help me make them have there own drainage system to keep them clean. Just for the duckling's. Does that sound okay for the duckling's ?

Sounds like duckling paradise.

 

[Miss Lydia]

It does sound like duckling paradise! On nice warm days you can take the ducklings outside for field trips. That starts then on getting their feathering going good an to acclimate them to outside temps. What are your temps day an night now? And any pics you want to share we’d love to see!

 

[Momma_duck]

It does sound like duckling paradise! On nice warm days you can take the ducklings outside for field trips. That starts then on getting their feathering going good an to acclimate them to outside temps. What are your temps day an night now? And any pics you want to share we’d love to see!

Okay I live in nc so my temp outside depends. One day it's 75 and the next it's 60. At night it can be super warm I think about a week ago it was 70 at night and this week it's cold. Today it's 60 and raining. It's been raining almost everyday this week it feels like. Two days ago it was about 75 outside and there pen can fold up so I folded it up and set it outside and let them out for about 30 minutes with some water and food I put them in my garden so they can play and nibble on stuff. There all about to free roam the living room I'm about to transfer them out my room because there so loud at night now I can't keep. Pictures coming in 5 minutes

 

[Momma_duck]

When we have one showing a leg problem we immediately think of a niacin deficiency and once they have one it best to get them on Durvet liquid B Complex TSC has it it will say injectable but we give it to our ducklings orally since your feeding this one separately you could mix 1/2 ml into a small amount of feed and let him eat it all that way you k ow he got full dose. You might want to keep this little one in the same brooder you have set up but with a divider of some kind so it’s not getting stepped on by the other and they can all still see each other. Until this recovers an get strong enough to with stand the other pushing and shoving. Sounds like you have Pekin and white layers. Both get big so you want to make sure they get an adequate amount of B everyday either through the Durvet liquid b complex or by putting 1 tab of brewers yeast to every cup of feed you give them. All except any who are already showing issues like this on you described. Sounds like you have a house full.And I commend you for teaching your children how to treat these ducklings and care for them.

 

[Momma_duck]

Some pictures don't want to load :/ but I'm trying

 

[Tfoley]

My vet advised me to switch our ducklings from chick starter to a duck crumble due to a niacin deficiency in our pekin. I am also new to ducks and didn't know anything about niacin deficiency until our baby started having trouble walking and standing. I started him on the liquid b complex yesterday thanks to some great advice that I got on here and he seems to be improving slowly! Good luck with your new babies!

 

[Momma_duck]

Some pictures don't want to load :/ but I'm trying

The pictures don't even show really how big they are there prob about 3 to 4 pounds there massive. The lady said they had hatched 24 hours before I got them so there 1 week tomorrow and some are 1 week day after tomorrow on Sunday. But they def don't look like a week.

 

[Momma_duck]

My vet advised me to switch our ducklings from chick starter to a duck crumble due to a niacin deficiency in our pekin. I am also new to ducks and didn't know anything about niacin deficiency until our baby started having trouble walking and standing. I started him on the liquid b complex yesterday thanks to some great advice that I got on here and he seems to be improving slowly! Good luck with your new babies!

Yes I'ma get them some in the morning. So I can give it to the one that is having issues. And just put it in there feed so they all can get it. But the one with the issues I have been hand feeding today just to make sure she or he is getting what it needs. So I will keep doing that until he or she is back to normal hopefully soon.