What to feed my ducks?

[Makennapatt26]

I feel like I have literally searched through every article out there, read every blog, but no one seems to give me a straight answer. What should I feed my ducks, and when? I wish there was a magical brand out there that covered everything! I have my 4 week old Pekin and 2 weeks old Khaki Campbells, and I have them on a crumble that I bought at the local feed mill. I also purchased brewers yeast to put in the crumble too, because I heard that was a good source of Niacin for their legs. I feed them dried meal worms and cheerios solely as snacks. I let them outside for the first time yesterday to swim and forage because it was so nice out! Should I feed them grit as well? I know I can't feed them the oyster grit because its too high in calcium. Im so sorry for the many many questions, but I never have gotten a straight answer! Any help would be appreciated, and also what you fed your ducks and when! Thank you so much!!!

 

[Ratchnick]

The short answer is there is no streight answer and lots of opinions on what is best. You need to ballance 3 main factors for ducks. Protein, calcium and niacin. This changes as the duck gets older.

Niacin
If your feeding a formulated duck feed you should not need to add niacin. If your feeding a chicken feed, you MUST add niacin.

Calcium
You should not feed calcium fortified feeds (layer feed) to ducks that are not currently laying. Likweise, laying ducks need some form of calcium fortification weather in feed or supplement like oyster shell on the side.

Protein
Adult ducks can do fine on a large range of protein, (15-22% common) in growing ducks protein needs to be managed more closely to prevent angel wing.

Ducklings
0-2 weeks 18-20% protein
2-7 weeks 16-18%
7-20 weeks 15-16%