New to ducks

[drubags]

Hi!

I have recently rescued a mallard duck from the school I work at as it's mum left it and it had a weak leg. It's been fine so far and now 3 weeks later it's tripled in size and poops a lot! Leg seems fine too.

Just posting really to see what to expect. It currently needs to be cleaned out every other day and likes having a bath every day and sitting on the sofa after to preen and dry off.

My plan is to hopefully wait until it has its adult feathers and can fly and then bring it back to work where there are many ducks that live on site. Do you think it will be possible? I think it has imprinted on me as it follows me and gets upset when I leave the room!

Any advice on keeping it's enclosure clean? It's costing me a lot in straw at the moment!

It's currently eating duckling starter and I'm not sure when to switch to adult food? It's growing extremely fast!

Thanks in advance.

Dru

 

[drubags]

Bump

 

[cat_named_noodles]

Ducks are social creatures and like the company of other ducks. Your duckling is probably imprinting on you. Unless it is raised with other ducks, it may not know it is a duck, ever. so I would not recommend returning it with others when it is older. In fact, the other ducks already have a hierarchy/pecking order established, and introducing your bird to them could turn out to be very stressful, as the others would likely pick on it, and it might just keep coming back to you. When a duck imprints on a person, and doesn't see other ducks, and stays with said person for a while, it thinks it is a person, not a duck. I would recommend getting another couple ducklings to keep with your little one. Chances are good that when you go to work or anywhere other than home, that little one is stressing out a lot, and companions would help with that too. I would recommend setting up a pen outside with the others as well. The bigger the area, the less you'll have to clean. And ducks do grow very fast! Our Pekin is only 4 months old and weighs a little more than 6 lbs (almost 3 kg).

Ducks also are very messy creatures, it just goes with the territory. I have to clean our duck's kiddie pool daily, change their water daily, and throw down poultry coop odor neutralizer (a fine powdered zeolite) under a new bed of pine shavings every couple weeks. In a smaller pen (ours is 16' x 16' or about 5 meters x 5 meters, and they have free range of a quarter acre during the day) I would clean it out weekly, maybe more. Wet bedding is a breeding ground for bacteria and just plain smells horrible when dirty. If your duckling isn't feathered out, be careful about letting it get wet. They chill easily when babies, and even though it was raised by its mother, I would still be careful about letting it get too wet. And you may want to put a diaper on it if letting it in the house (there are duck diapers available!). Duck poop is watery and nasty!

After a few weeks you can switch it over to grower crumbles. Just make sure it is non-medicated. Duck feed usually isn't medicated in the first place, but the chicken grower with medication can kill ducks. Depending on your weather, a heat lamp may be needed. Ducklings like warmth just like baby chicks. But make sure it can also get away from the heat when it needs to. After it feathers out and reached about 10 weeks old or so you can switch it to layer pellets. There are many websites that go into more detail about duckling care, imprinting and more.
Hope this helps and good luck with you duck!