Not even sure where to post this. Driving down a busy road in the middle of town where there is NO water we found a baby duck. We searched and searched and there was no sign of a mommy anywhere. It was in the middle of the busy road so we grabbed it. It can't be more than 24 hours old and is very tiny. It is smaller than my newly hatched chicks were. I have it set up in the brooder with a heat lamp and have it eating chick starter. Anything else? I have no idea what to do with a duckling. Went back tonight to see if we could search out the family and had no luck at all. I plan to try again tomorrow but I think it is pretty hopeless. i am open to any suggestions. I am treating it like a newly hatched chick for lack of knowledge of anything else to do.
Make sure that your chick starter is unmedicated or medicated only with amprollium. Other than that theres really no difference in how you brood them at first. Soon you'll see that your little duckling gets very messy in his water dish and you'll want to either make a wet brooder, an elevated cage or an outside shelter if its warm enough there. Dont give him water to swim in til hes completely feathered out or he can get waterlogged and drown. He can drown in the rain too so be sure if hes in an outside brooder that you bringing him in during heavy rains or make sure that his brooder has a roof on it so that he doesnt get real wet. Ducklings dont always have enough sense to come in out of the rain!
As said above, just give him/her some unmedicated chick feed and some water. Make sure it isn't big enough for him/her to get into..you will have quite the mess in there!!! You can let him swim a little in your bath tub or a small tub, but I would only let him when you are there supervising. Don't give him a swimming tub in his brooder. Wild Mommy ducks take their babies swimming right away but not for long periods of time. Heat isn't as big of a deal for ducks as for chicks, but some heat is good, just not hot. I raised all of my geese and ducks in the house with no heat, just a light bulb for light...my house is usually about 75-80 degrees so it was fine. I am sure you will do a fine job and being there is only one, you will have quite the little pal following you around!! Yes we must see some pics!!! I didn't raise any ducks this year..it was my first spring in about 6 years that I haven't had any baby ducks or geese!!!
When I lived in France I took my host family's 12 yo daughter with me to the market one weekend. I let her buy a duckling (ohmigawd they're adorable). She raised it solo and it did fine. It eventually went into the hen house with all the other poultry (no ducks, tho). Re: water for ducklings... The first time Marie introduced "Magnum" (a French brand of ice cream bars similar to Dove bars) to a water-filled horse trough, you would have thought he died & went to heaven. He dove, splashed, and was SO happy. We made sure to keep him warm afterwards so he wouldn't get sick. Magnum was still a downy baby at that time - yours will be fine in water, supervised, for short periods.
