Taming Ducklings

[Amykins]

If you think it's fun feeding peas to them in a tub, try getting lil feeder fish from your local pet shop. I put 20 of them in the duck pool yesterday and they were gone in a couple of minutes. The ducks love them and it's fun to watch them dive for them.

It has also been raining like crazy the last few days so I have been going out at night with a spotlight and shining it around on the ground for them. The ducks follow me everywhere and gobble up foot long nightcrawlers that are up basking in the rain water. My ducks are only a few weeks old but you'd be amazed at what they can eat and love eating as well.

Other fun snacks are mealworms and smoothies. I blend up smoothies with apples, pears and oranges and they love it. Make sure you take the seeds out of the apples and pears first cos they contain small traces of cyanide which could harm your ducks if they eat too much. And supposedly citrus fruits are bad for them too cos of the acid and stomach issues. I feed mine oranges anyways cos I have read that is a wives tale. In the wild they will gobble up the oranges. Plus, oranges are a staple in peacock diets so I can't imagine it is much different for ducks. If a few of them get stomach aches they'll quit eating it just like I quit eating jalapenos with my heartburn....

What's good for one bird could be unhealthy for another. Please don't give your ducks oranges, especially if they're babies. It really can hurt! I've dealt with chronic heartburn for some time so I can't imagine inflicting that on my ducks too Ducks are prey animals, so they do a very good job of hiding pain or discomfort. That's why when a duck goes down or is too sick to do anything, you know it's gotten REALLY serious!


We only give Wobbles 2-3 fish at a time, partially because he's a derp but also to limit the amount of tiny skeletons his GI tract has to handle at a time. Call ducks are delicate. But as terrible as he is at catching them, it's glorious to watch!

 

[donaldanddaisy]

I have two Pekin ducks, one of which does not like to touched. He is really scared and kind of the dominant one. They are 3 wks old and the other seems to not mind as much. This kinda help as far as how to get him to maybe ease up.. He's just impossible to hold and hard to catch when I let him wonder around the yard.