Ducks!
- Thread starter TheDan
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Man those ducklings really make a mess with their water... They must splash three quarters of it out instead of drinking it. Makes a wet mess of their bedding; which isn't good for them. This morning I set the waterer on a small brick so that it's about head high to them. Hopefully that will cut down on how much they splash out.
Y'alls comments have me thinking about guineas now, too. Sounds like they are great for pest control. They go after mice as well as bugs, right? That would be extremely helpful.
Y'alls comments have me thinking about guineas now, too. Sounds like they are great for pest control. They go after mice as well as bugs, right? That would be extremely helpful.
Good advice. We always free ranged our ducks. Usually just dug a shallow "pond", about 6" deep using the dirt for a small berm, filled up with water from the barn pump. Nothing fancy.
And with ducks, we fenced them out, not in.
I'm trying to figure out a pond like the one you describe and to try to be able to recapture some of the water from it for a garden. Haven't had time to really work out a plan yet.
A couple of things. As you mentioned before, the ducks don't need to actually swim. But they do need to get at least their bills wet to clean out their nostrils (or whatever the holes in their bills are called). My big ones root around in the dirt and then stick their heads in the water and shake them around. That's where most of the mess comes from, and my ducklings are already doing that. I'm going to build a waterer out of a couple 5 gallon buckets. The lower one would have large holes cut about 3" from the bottom where they could stick their heads. The upper bucket would be a reservoir controlled by a float valve in the lower one. 3" of water should be enough for their heads, but not so much to be very wasteful.
I bought some extra large sanitary pads and put them in the bottom of the ducklings' tank. They're made out of the absorbent diaper material. Most of the splashed water gets soaked up by the pads and makes cleaning the tank out much easier. They're about $6 for a package of 10 at HEB.
Yeah it's pretty funny watching them clean their nostrils. They take a drink and then shake their head while sneezing 
I like the two bucket waterer idea. Is there a diagram of that somewhere or did you just come up with it? Here's what I did for my brooder... They completely saturate the bedding around the waterer in short order, so I decided to set the waterer on a container filled with rocks roughly the size of the saturation area. Now when I refill the water I can just pour out all that they splashed around, and wash the poop off the rocks.
They were also knocking the feeder off the brick so I zip tied it on. Very sturdy now... I'm feeding them Purina Flock Raiser, but I found out they need a supplement the provides niacin and B vitamins in addition to the feed. Nutritional yeast from the bulk section of HEB works.
I like the two bucket waterer idea. Is there a diagram of that somewhere or did you just come up with it? Here's what I did for my brooder... They completely saturate the bedding around the waterer in short order, so I decided to set the waterer on a container filled with rocks roughly the size of the saturation area. Now when I refill the water I can just pour out all that they splashed around, and wash the poop off the rocks.
They were also knocking the feeder off the brick so I zip tied it on. Very sturdy now... I'm feeding them Purina Flock Raiser, but I found out they need a supplement the provides niacin and B vitamins in addition to the feed. Nutritional yeast from the bulk section of HEB works.
Here's the site I found with a good description of the waterer.
Poo-Free Self-Filling Duck Waterer
I like how you set up the waterer over the rocks in your brooder. It looks like it contains the mess much better.
I'm also feeding mine Flock Raiser. I squeeze out a capsule of niacin on the food once a day. I could only find it in capsule form. I don't know how much they actually ingest, but I figure it's better than nothing.
Poo-Free Self-Filling Duck Waterer
I like how you set up the waterer over the rocks in your brooder. It looks like it contains the mess much better.
I'm also feeding mine Flock Raiser. I squeeze out a capsule of niacin on the food once a day. I could only find it in capsule form. I don't know how much they actually ingest, but I figure it's better than nothing.
Thanks for the link. Yeah the rocks really help. Elevating their food and water with the bricks helped a lot as well. They are much less likely to stand on their feeder and poop in it as they eat now
If you put her on clean up duty it wouldn't be much trouble for you at all
The little duckies are growing at a nice rate. I had to upgrade their "house" from the 20 gal tote to a 35 gal one. Hopefully that'll last them another week or so
I worked from home for a bit today and I could hear them peeping rather loudly in the other room. I put them in a small box and took them into my "office" and set them where they could watch me while I worked. They went back to their content peeps. I think they are getting used to me being around.
Unrelated video:
I worked from home for a bit today and I could hear them peeping rather loudly in the other room. I put them in a small box and took them into my "office" and set them where they could watch me while I worked. They went back to their content peeps. I think they are getting used to me being around.
Unrelated video:
It took me three weeks to get the first dozen ducklings we raised to get in the really nice 3/4 acre tank at my place. They just wanted the kiddie pool and dog bowl close to the house. Any ducklings we raise from now on will be housed close to or on the pond/tank, not by the house. If I am late to feed them they show in the back yard quacking and throwing a fit.
All future ducks will be raised on the pond, not any where close to the house.
All future ducks will be raised on the pond, not any where close to the house.
Interestingly this is not the first time I've been called a quack as a compliment
It smells like popcorn to me. ...or like a stale honey butter chicken biscuit from Whataburger that has been re-heated in the microwave. It would make me hungry except I know that smell is poop
What do you feed your ducks? I've been feeding them Purina Flock Raiser with some extra nutritional yeast. I did give them some cottage cheese as a treat yesterday and their poop didn't really smell like anything after that.
I noticed that they have gotten so big that they can't really get their bills into the small waterer anymore so I got a 1 gallon dog dish for them. It's deep enough that they can practically submerge their whole head. The brick keeps them from trying to swim in it and splash all the water out. At first I didn't put the brick in; that only took about 30min for them to splash the entire gallon out
I turned them loose in the bath tub for the first time today. Pretty hilarious
They took to it like................
You would think they were ducks...
Built a pen for them to run around outside... I put them out in the morning and bring them in at sundown. Next project is to build a house for them so that they can stay out there. They're out growing the house
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That's a cool little pen. The only suggestion I have for building their house is to make it really easy to clean out the bedding. I did not do that when I converted a stall for my grown ducks. It's too big (about 6' x 10' for 10 ducks). And I should change their straw more frequently than I do, but I dread mucking the old straw out.
I'm thinking I will build it on legs about 18in high and slide the bottom in. That way I can just slide it out and let all the crap fall onto a tarp, then drag the tarp over to the compost pile. I plan on feeding them worms from the compost pile as well. Circle of life
