Pekin Duck Questions...

[askjcm2005]

Hello: I have 2 pekin ducks that I got when they were 3 days old. They are now 13 weeks old and a lot of fun!! I wanted to breed them when they are ready but I have no idea when to expect that. It is for sure a male and female pair. Is that all I need? Or should there be more females then males? I would like to keep just the 2 if possible but would get more girls if thats what needs to be done. The girl is the brave one and the bigger of the 2. The male seems to be wayy more shy and always lets the female approach us before he will. When she swims he is usually on the side watching and waiting for her to finish so he doesnt seem to be to dominant. If they do breed when should I expect it since we are entering fall then winter soon. Do they lay all year long? I live in San Diego so there isnt any snow but it does drop down into the high 20's low 30's on the colder winter nights/mornings... Is that going to be okay for them outside being that cold? I do lock them up in an old dog house that we added a door to. My mom will just freak if I ask to put any type of heater out there so I want to know what to expect this winter.

Also, for those who have ducks, how much do yours eat? Do you let them eat as much as they want and keep refilling there bowls when empty or do you put a certain amount of food out for them? It just seems to me that they can eat and eat forever if I let them I cant imagine having 10-20 ducks, although I would LOVE too!!! We do let them out to free range in the evenings and weekends when we are home but during the day while we work its strictly pen time and we also feed them lots of leftovers but not enough to consider that part of there daily food intake...

Any info/advise if appreciated...

Oh and the silkies in the picture with them are BEST FRIENDS!!! They are never apart from each other since they were raised in the same brooder.

 

[SugarDuck]

That should be all you need is one female and male. We had two of each and they paired up pretty quickly. (my understanding is that they mate for life. I may be wrong and someone else can correct me on here) Ours are free range during the day. At night they go back to their home and are let out early every morning. They really don't eat too much feed but in comparison to a chicken, they do. Our pekins are the biggest animal in the yard. They will often shove others out of the way to get too food. Watching ours swim is the best show that is put on at our house. They are hilarious, "goosing" each other then diving under water, jumping out and running around will quacking or the males making their raspy quack. I think most ducks like to start laying in the Springtime. We have a Cayuga that I wish would lay before winter but I know she will wait.

 

[askjcm2005]

Thanks for the info!! I guess they dont eat too much but I am currently feeding 200lbs of food a month (50lbs a week) and have 2 ducks and 15 chickens but only 5 of the chickens are 3-5 months old the others are all young and tiny still. I fill up the food container in the morning for the ducks and would come home to it empty everyday so I started filling 2 each morning and they'd eat both everyday so I didnt want to keep giving them more and more so now I just feed them 1 container full a day which is probably a little smaller then 1 of the gallon water jug things since they seemed to eat it all no matter how much I put out. They seem to be fine and healthy! Mine definitely shove others out of the way when I come out with the peas/corn, they are obsessed!!! And each weekend when I refill the pools they go absolutely crazy like yours do!! Its soooo fun to watch, we always crack up and the way they look at me when they hear running water from the hose it pretty funny to... and i had a feeling they wouldn't lay til springtime ::sigh:: LOL oh well!!

 

[pascopol]

Flock of Pekins will eat you out of the house. a pair or trio is affordable. A grown Pekin duck eats an equivalent of 2-3 standart size chicken hens.

On the plus side Pekins are reasonably good layers, will lay huge eggs everyday through summer and early fall.

Pekins are broilers of duck breeds, they were bred long time to gain weight fast and reach butchering size at 6-8 weeks.

It is hard to fight genetics.

 

[doubleostud]

Two is fine, just watch and make sure that he is not beating her up since he has no other females to give attention to.

 

[CricketYang]

My pekins started "wrestling" at exactly four months - two weeks after that (18 weeks) one of my females laid her first egg. So you can expect them to start "wrestling" around mid-October. IDK about the egg laying though, when mine started laying it was in August, so the weather was still nice out. Right now their eggs are about the same size as my chicken eggs, sometimes bigger bc it's a double yolker. They incubate just fine (the single yolks) also bc I have a few in my bator right that are kicking just fine. I feed mine a 22% duck feed, 50lbs seems to have lasted us about a month or so, however they free range all day.


It's exciting when you get your first egg! I didn't care HOW dirty and covered in hay it was