selling ducklings and breeding questions

Duck mommy 2019 · May 24, 2020

EverythingDucks said:
Sorry for the late reply, Donald and Daisy came over. Anyway, that depends. About how many (fertile) eggs can she lay (over, say a week)? And if you end up keeping them for a while how many can you care for? I guess it mostly depends on how many you think you can sell over a period of time. Seeing as most people like to buy them as day olds, if only 4 of 10 are sold within that time, then you'll have 6 that are older than a day and not as many people will buy them then. There are a lot of varying factors but if you know you can care for them and sell them easily then go for however many you can handle. Like I've said before, I've never done this but hopefully I make sense lol

if i cannot sell them all, i know someone who will take any extra drakes

EverythingDucks · May 24, 2020

Duck mommy 2019 said:
if i cannot sell them all, i know someone who will take any extra drakes

Good plan. Are you planning on shipping them, delivering them yourselves, or having people come pick them up?

Duck mommy 2019 · May 24, 2020

EverythingDucks said:
Good plan. Are you planning on shipping them, delivering them yourselves, or having people come pick them up?

i’m not old enough to drive, so i would definitely need to have people come pick them up or have my parents drive me. i’m not sure if i would ship them because i don’t know what is required to make sure they survive

EverythingDucks · May 24, 2020

Duck mommy 2019 said:
i’m not old enough to drive, so i would definitely need to have people come pick them up or have my parents drive me. i’m not sure if i would ship them because i don’t know what is required to make sure they survive

Yeah, It'd be easiest to have people pick them up. You could have them meet you somewhere if you'd like to but most people like to see the parents too. Or, if you wanted too you could have to option to have it delivered with for extra money. I think shipping would just be expensive and stressful

rp riley · May 24, 2020

Everyone around me sells the ducklings for about 6 dollars a piece, also I would suggest pure khaki campbells because people love them for their egg laying capability. you might just have to sell them as unsexed because males are sometimes pretty hard to sell. Since khaki campbells are a good sized duck some people will buy males to eat

Duck mommy 2019 · May 24, 2020

rp riley said:
Everyone around me sells the ducklings for about 6 dollars a piece, also I would suggest pure khaki campbells because people love them for their egg laying capability. you might just have to sell them as unsexed because males are sometimes pretty hard to sell. Since khaki campbells are a good sized duck some people will buy males to eat

any ducklings that my ducks hatch out will have to be pets, and not used as meat. i just can’t sell ducks knowing they’ll be killed.

Floof · May 25, 2020

Duck mommy 2019 said:
if i cannot sell them all, i know someone who will take any extra drakes

How many extra drakes can they take though? If you make a habit of hatching multiple clutches of eggs then you may be inundated with males. Either sell them as straight run and accept that some will probably be eaten to keep a healthy male to female ratio or sell them sexed and over run your friend with males. Males are hard to rehome and it can be hard to accept but most will find their way into someone's belly. You will also need a plan for dealing with necessary culling. Some birds hatch unhealthy, some are unable to be saved, and you need to have the grit to dispatch them humanely when that happens.

I have bred, hatched, and sold chickens over the years and had to toughen up the hard way. Not everything will go smoothly and it's better to hope for the best but have a plan for the worst.

Since you are young I want to encourage you to try out your hatching business but advise that you start small JUST IN CASE things don't go as planned. Start with maybe 8 eggs. Not all will hatch so assume you will have about 5 or 6 babies. You can advertise them on craigslist the last week before they hatch so that you have homes already lined up. If it turns out that you enjoy doing this then you can make or buy an incubator and gradually do larger clutches.

Duck mommy 2019 · May 25, 2020

Floof said:
How many extra drakes can they take though? If you make a habit of hatching multiple clutches of eggs then you may be inundated with males. Either sell them as straight run and accept that some will probably be eaten to keep a healthy male to female ratio or sell them sexed and over run your friend with males. Males are hard to rehome and it can be hard to accept but most will find their way into someone's belly. You will also need a plan for dealing with necessary culling. Some birds hatch unhealthy, some are unable to be saved, and you need to have the grit to dispatch them humanely when that happens.

I have bred, hatched, and sold chickens over the years and had to toughen up the hard way. Not everything will go smoothly and it's better to hope for the best but have a plan for the worst.

Since you are young I want to encourage you to try out your hatching business but advise that you start small JUST IN CASE things don't go as planned. Start with maybe 8 eggs. Not all will hatch so assume you will have about 5 or 6 babies. You can advertise them on craigslist the last week before they hatch so that you have homes already lined up. If it turns out that you enjoy doing this then you can make or buy an incubator and gradually do larger clutches.

my friend has just a drake flock, so she could probably take lots of drakes. and i know a lot of people who would want just two ducks so i could give them two drakes. i would honestly keep them if i needed too (once we move we are making separate areas for each of our drakes) just so they don’t get eaten