I got my order of baby ducks in last week. The lady at the post office called and told me my chickens were in. She didn’t realize that baby ducks chirp just like chickens I guess.:) I got the minimum order of 10 and the cool thing is that I could mix and match breeds so that I could try out different ones. I am expanding my egg production and though I love my two Pekins ( plus one drake) and one Ruen, I am anxious to explore other breeds. The nice thing about the company I ordered from (McMurray Hatchery in Iowa) is that I can order just females. A lot of the local places will only give you a straight run. But back to the breeds.  I have one Khaki Campbell, one Black Swedish, two more Pekins, one Cayuga, two Blue Swedish, two fawn and white Runners, and one Buff. This should give me some nice adversity to my duck flock.

My babies arrived happy and healthy last Wednesday and were extremely excited to be in their new hot box. They were tearing around the place like crazy! I forgot how fast little ducklings can move! Ducks grow twice as fast as chickens and after a week they are already starting to get big. No sign of pin feathers at the moment but it won’t take very long.

I can honestly say that I like ducks more than chickens (though I do really like chickens). They are more work and I’ll get into that later but their personalities are just amazing. They all stay together and don’t scatter as much as the chickens do either. If you want an entertaining farm animal or pet for your back yard, I would suggest a couple ducks.

When I first decided to get more ducks (after a request for duck eggs) I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to. I had had a couple of Ruens in the past and they were incredibly messy animals! I got Pekins this time and couldn’t believe how clean they were…well….in the pen at least.

I wanted to know how to raise layer ducks so I tried to research the proper way to raise a duck. Most of what I could find were people that just had them as pets in the backyard or in their house (gross in my opinion). I could find nothing on just farm raised animals for egg production, so in my true style, I figured I’d just wing it. I was told in various articles to not bed ducks with straw as mold can be harmful to them. They got straw and they love it though I do use wood shavings by their water to help soak up the water they throw all over the place. I do not put moldy straw in with any birds ever because that’s just common sense. All these articles kept trying to convince me that ducks were like fragile pieces of glass and needed to be treated as such. Really? ‘Then how did they survive for thousands of years without humans?’ I wondered.  Hmmm…. One day my dad called me out and said “Go look and see what your ducks are doing.” His tone was one of sarcasm and amusement.  Great.  It had recently rained, and one part of our upper cattle pen had turned into a slew of manure water. The ducks were in there…wallowing…bathing…fishing for things to eat…and they were LOVING it!!  It was just disgusting to watch my beautiful white ducks (now manure green and black) having the time of their lives. Thankfully they washed up in their little pond before they came in for the night, but after that I wasn’t worried about how “fragile” ducks may be.  I even had one get an inner ear infection and was wobbling all over the place.  I was told antibiotics will kill them.  I called the vet.  They informed me that a sick duck was a dead duck.  I asked them if I were to try penicillin how much would I give.  They wouldn’t give me an answer because you’re not suppose to give ducks antibiotics since it can be fatal to them.  I informed them the duck would most likely die anyway so I might as well give it a shot.  Again, no help.  Then I asked a different question.  If I were to give the duck a shot, how would I do it and where?  I got an answer to that as well as the size needle I should use.  Sweet.  I read the bottle and gave the proper dose per pound which was the most minute amount I could fit in the syringe.  Surprise!  The duck got better!  I kept on with the injections according to the bottle and my duck was fine.  That was about two years ago and she’s still doing fine.  I think I got really lucky!

Raising ducks is really not very difficult as long as you are willing to put in the effort that goes along with it. They don’t need to have a pond to swim in but I do provide mine with a little bath tub type area for them to use outside in the summer time. I have a rock in the bottom to help them get out as it’s a little too deep for them to get out without help.

They do need a bucket of water in their pen to dip their heads in to prevent sticky eye and to aide in grooming. They will throw the water all over the place, so I have a little catch pan (livestock feed pan) under the bucket to reduce the amount that goes on their bedding.  I don’t give them a water bucket until they get pretty big.  When they are small they get a regular chicken waterer. The first week as babies they also get the same electrolyte/vitamin mix as the baby chicks.  I feed them chicken starter and then regular layer feed. They will eat the feed, then play around in their water to help the feed dissolve into something they can swallow easily. Their water ends up being a mess so I change their bucket twice a day. They also need more space per duck than chickens do. I bed them with straw and shavings as I said before. I also have a board area they have to step up onto. This is their “dry” area because the area with the water bucket gets wet right away from them playing in it. They keep this “upper” very clean and generally lay their eggs up there as I haven’t gotten around to building them any nesting boxes yet.

Pekins don’t seem to be as messy poop wise as the other ducks I’ve seen, so I only clean their pen about once a week in the winter (they are locked in a heated building in the winter) and once every week and a half in the summer as they are outside during the day.  Duck poop is made up of 90% water so it is much messier than chicken poop.

In the winter time the ducks are given cut up cabbage every morning.  It is essential that they get their greens and they really love their cabbage!  If I don’t feed it to them right away they get VERY angry.:)

Pekins (we’ll see about these new ducks) lay their eggs in the evening or early morning so I collect their eggs every morning.  The eggs tend to get a little dirtier than chicken eggs so I wash them before I sell them.

Ducks make nice watch dogs since the minute something disturbs them they start a huge racket. Only the female Pekins make noise though. The Drake just makes quiet grunting type sounds.  The funny thing is that I can tell what they are doing by the type of noises they make.  They have an angry quack, a happy quack, a conversation quack and an “I’m getting in trouble” quack.  People may think I’m crazy but ducks owners know what I’m talking about.  Even my mom noticed it and commented on it.

Though they can be a bit of work, ducks are so much fun and I would recommend them to anyone.  Any questions or comments are welcome.