Too cold for ducks?

[jennyman]

Hello all! What is too cold for ducks go be out at night? We have a large enclosed, electric, covered run for them. Sometimes they choose to go away at night other times they sleep outside. With winter coming, just wondering how cold is too cold to let them make this choice? Thanks!

 

[Miss Lydia]

As long as they have the choice of inside or out and they are secure in both they should be fine as long as they are completely feathered in. If your having extreme weather then it would be good to lock them in overnight.

 

[BabyGotQuack]

Hello all! What is too cold for ducks go be out at night? We have a large enclosed, electric, covered run for them. Sometimes they choose to go away at night other times they sleep outside. With winter coming, just wondering how cold is too cold to let them make this choice? Thanks!

Totally agree with @Miss Lydia. I always let mine choose. Ducks are hearty, but if they get cold they will go in the coop.

 

[DukesDucks]

My nights are already below freezing and are only going to get colder for months yet. I do shut my ducks in at night but even with cold snowy days, as long as they can be protected from wind, they have been fine.

 

[telandra2]

It's day 5 of 15f night temps and every dawn my ducks run out of their coop to be outside all day. Last winter they hunkered down at 20. Yesterday they went walkabout in the snow.

 

[stevenz59]

Hello all! What is too cold for ducks go be out at night? We have a large enclosed, electric, covered run for them. Sometimes they choose to go away at night other times they sleep outside. With winter coming, just wondering how cold is too cold to let them make this choice? Thanks!

They dont mind the cold too much but if left out at night they will eventually get all picked off by an owl or fox, possible a raccoon. The owl hes a tricky one, they dont know about owls

 

[Luv Ducks]

Ducks have all of that down underneath those feathers and actually do better in the cold than the extreme heat. Mine love to be out and have never been shut up into any enclosure even at 19 below 0. They are not dumb and know when to come in out of the cold. They will huddle together if it is too cold for them and I have several enclosures if they choose to do that in their pen.

 

[FeatheredFriends&Horses2]

Most ducks do really well in the cold, and should be just fine. Our ducks actually LOVE when it snows and go "swimming" around in the snow. The only time we ever had trouble with any of ours was a couple winters ago it was in the negative teens - negative twenties and the person taking care of them opened up the coop door to let them out (we keep them in at night due to predators), then poured some water into their little trough so they good get a quick drink before it froze up again (this was like an hourly activity for quite a while). One of the little featherbrains decided she didn't just need a drink, she needed get all her feathers wet. Brilliant bird hopped in, and froze her bottom feathers to the ice block.
Person out that morning saw she was stuck, so went to pick her up and managed to get the bird out but left a small ring of feathers frozen solid to the ice. So the partially naked bird got a little extra care since she didn't have all her feathers to keep her warm.