Our Baby Ducks.

Months ago I wrote an article, “Jemima Puddleduck,” describing how sad it was to lose our female duck.  Our drake suffered the most because he was so lonely.  He has spent much of his time on a nearby lake.  He waddles home every night to sleep.

As wild wood ducks temporarily use the same watering hole, our drake has befriended them.  They swim around together.  I imagine the tales that they tell him of far away places and tales of their adventures.  When they leave, he always stays.  This is his home.

A woman not far from our home raises fowl of all sorts.  She has everything from chickens to peacocks.  She sells geese and guineas, too.  I called her the other day and inquired about ducks.  She had some that had recently hatched.  So we all piled in the family vehicle to visit her farm.

She gave us a tour.  It was interesting to see her set-up.  She has a lot of birds.  We only wanted ducks that day.  She had six available.  Even though we were not planning to purchase that many, I could not bear the thought of choosing to leave two ducks.  So we are the proud owners of six ducks.

The woman explained to me that ducks are not like chickens.  Chickens need warmth from a light for a much longer time than a duck.  Ducks are heartier in this respect.  The ducks we bought had not been with artificial light since they were three days old.

We have them in a small animal cage.  Most people use these cages to transport their show goat or lambs.  The ducks have plenty of room in which to exercise.  We move the cage every day so that they always have fresh grass.  It is a good way to fertilize the yard, too.

I prepare three meals a day for my ducks.  I chose not to use store bought chicken feed.  The protein content of the feed as well as the medications which usually supplement the feed are not good for young waterfowl.  I used Carla Emery’s recommendations for feeding baby ducks.  She wrote, The Encyclopedia of Country Living.

In this great book, Ms. Emery suggests cooking oatmeal for breakfast.  Feeding scrambled eggs with milk for lunch.  And for dinner, she recommends feeding whole wheat bread covered with milk.  The protein from the eggs and milk are an important part of their diet.  Also, a good supply of fresh greens are excellent.  Ms. Emery suggests onion tops, dandelion greens, grass, etc.  She supplies the ducks with grit occasionally.  You can purchase a bag of grit at most feed stores.

You gradually shift from cooked food to grain as they grow.  When they are going to the pond with the adult drake, I will stop feeding them grain.  I will throw them some bread crumbs in the evening to keep them coming home.  After awhile, I will only do this occasionally.  The adult ducks do not mind because they are foraging for themselves.

Ducks are relatively easy keepers.  As soon as they get all their feathers, I will begin letting them out into the yard during the day.  I also like to set up a small watering hole out of a plastic child’s swimming pool.  You just make a ramp up to the edge as well as down into the water.  They will bathe, swim, etc. until they tire.  It is good practice before going down to the big pond.

Our drake spends most of his morning now sitting outside of the cage.  He talks to them.  He lays next to the cage.  I am very interested to see how he behaves when we let them out.  At least he will not be lonely anymore.

Tags: Carla Emery, ducks vs. chickens, Encyclopedia of Country Living, feeding baby ducks, home-grown feed, raising ducks

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 at 5:52 am and is filed under Homesteading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.