Our ducks are now trained fly killers!!!!!

[Chicalina]

It wasn't clear from your first post that you were giving the rice and scratch mix to the chickens as well. I have no idea how much a quart is (metric here) but you talked about cooking up 3 pounds of rice and a quart of scratch and giving them a 'big portion every morning' and the whole batch lasts a week. I can't visualise the portions there. But you did mention the price of the rice so it looks like you are trying to save money by feeding it.

I stand by my advice to not feed the rice and scratch mix every day, or at all. It gives them nothing but empty calories.

 

[Duck mommy 2019]

I'm sorry if you think I'm criticising.

If you feed all that rice and scratch then it is replacing the good stuff they should eat in the form of flock raiser. I'm glad you've got that for them too. But, imagine letting your kids eat a load of white bread just before their dinner. They won't want their dinner! And they've filled their stomachs with refined starches with little nutritional value.

If they get fat and cannot fly, it is because they are being mostly fed with high calorie/low value carbs!

I would urge you to ditch the rice. Feed scratch occasionally not every day. Keep the flock raiser as their staple food and give fruit/veg, free ranging for insects as a nice addition but not the main. And look into niacin rich foods or a supplement.

what i do with mine is, free access to the normal feed all day. they eat like 2 huge bowls of it daily (and if they finish that it gets refilled again)

then they get a bunch of healthy veggies daily at like noon. romaine, cucumber, and tomato usually. then like an hour before they go to sleep i give them one cup of “forage mix” which is sunflower seeds, raisins, peanuts without shell, black soldier fly larvae, mealworms, and a couple kinds of chicken grain. that way i know they ate all the good food they wanted/needed, but they also get treats.

 

[BigLar368]

It wasn't clear from your first post that you were giving the rice and scratch mix to the chickens as well. I have no idea how much a quart is (metric here) but you talked about cooking up 3 pounds of rice and a quart of scratch and giving them a 'big portion every morning' and the whole batch lasts a week. I can't visualise the portions there. But you did mention the price of the rice so it looks like you are trying to save money by feeding it.

I stand by my advice to not feed the rice and scratch mix every day, or at all. It gives them nothing but empty calories.

3 pounds of rice last one week.

 

[Flockincrazy]

mine do it all the time i have 8ducks and 5guineas I have 0flies 0mosquitoes

 

[KaleIAm]

Funny, of my 3 ducks only my welsh harlequin hunts flies! She's good at it, too.

 

[Flockincrazy]

Funny, of my 3 ducks only my welsh harlequin hunts flies! She's good at it, too.

I have 4rouens and 4pekins they are skeeter eating fools my pond pump took a crap at the beginning of the summer and because of Covid we had to wait for ever to get the new one so of course the mosquitoes were laying eggs in the pond and they gobbled them up

 

[BigLar368]

Funny, of my 3 ducks only my welsh harlequin hunts flies! She's good at it, too.

Nice!

 

[BigLar368]

I have 4rouens and 4pekins they are skeeter eating fools my pond pump took a crap at the beginning of the summer and because of Covid we had to wait for ever to get the new one so of course the mosquitoes were laying eggs in the pond and they gobbled them up

I empty and refill our pond twice a day sometimes 3 times so it never gets that dirty or full of skeeters. I have a well in the back yard so it's free and they love the cool water. I also have a watering log in the coop hooked up to the well and it drains into our alley/ditch. Very convenient. They have fresh water almost all the time.

 

[Flockincrazy]

I empty and refill our pond twice a day sometimes 3 times so it never gets that dirty or full of skeeters. I have a well in the back yard so it's free and they love the cool water. I also have a watering log in the coop hooked up to the well and it drains into our alley/ditch. Very convenient. They have fresh water almost all the time.

Sweet i wish I have 2 koi ponds together they are 500gallons so my water bill would be insane if I did that but they are in total shade and stay cool and with the constant movement with the new pump this is 3wks with no pump see how green the water is now its clear and my water system is rain water sometimes regular water

 

[BigLar368]

Sweet i wish I have 2 koi ponds together they are 500gallons so my water bill would be insane if I did that but they are in total shade and stay cool and with the constant movement with the new pump this is 3wks with no pump see how green the water is now its clear and my water system is rain water sometimes regular water

My set up