What You Need to Know About Keeping Ducks – QUACK!

Spring is almost here.  Baby poultry are showing up in farm stores everywhere.  If you love chickens, you may love ducks too.

Ducklings are just like baby chicks except they are ducks.  If you decide to adopt a few this spring be sure to give them what a baby duck needs:

1. Warmth (heat lamp)
2. Food
3. Water

For details on bringing up ducklings (and chicks) go here.

We own American Pekin Ducks.  Not because that is what we wanted, but because that is what our Tractor Supply had for sale the day we brought home 3 ducklings.

American Pekin Ducks are the most popular breed of duck in the US according to Wikipedia.  They are a domestic duck used for  meat and eggs.  We wanted eggs, but didn’t end up with a female.  So, we have two dude ducks waddling around our farm being cute and providing yard art.

I’m not a duck expert, but am happy to share our experience.

This month one year ago we got our first ducklings.  So, I suppose we should celebrate our duck anniversary soon.  🙂

We turned into those weird people who have chickens walking around the inside of their house wearing diapers.  Only, it wasn’t a chicken.  It was a duck.  If you don’t believe me, or want to see a duck in my house wearing a diaper go here.

Now that I have a year of duck-ownership under my belt, I can tell you a few drawbacks and a few fabulous things about owning ducks.

I do think if you have owned chickens, ducks can be a fun, easy addition.

Things I’ve learned:

• How to keep ducks
• Why ducks need water
• How to coop train ducks
• Why folks don’t keep ducks
• How to keep ducks in winter
• What ducks do in the snow

I’ve learned a bunch about ducks.

Our ducks are great.  We stated with 3.  We lost one (we think it was from a round-up spraying in the field across the street from us).

Here’s some interesting notes on Duck Ownership:

Ducks in Winter

Our 2 ducks, Ping and Filbert, have been troopers this winter.  Even with temperatures well below freezing they have been happily waddling around the homestead.  They like the snow more than the chickens.

When the chickens have decided it’s too cold & snowy to go out of the coop, or can’t figure out what happened to the ground (it’s all white – so it must be gone) – the ducks are out and about playing in the snow.  They love it.  They eat it.  It’s so cute.

“It’s a great day if you’re a duck.”

Ducks need a place to Sleep

Our ducks are coop trained.  They are free-ranged.  It did take us some time to convince the ducks to walk up the ramp to the coop – but with a little help -they got the hang of it.  They go to bed every night with the chickens now.

We have nesting boxes in our coop, and the ducks sleep in 2 of the bottom boxes.

Here is the inside of our coop.  You can see that the nesting boxes and the floor of the coop is covered with hay.  You could use something other than hay (straw, sawdust, shavings, shredded paper or other organic material).

Bedding is important in coops:

1. It provides a soft nest for eggs.
2. It absorbs manure.
3. As the manure and bedding “compost” they create heat for your flock in winter.
4. It keeps down the humidity in the coop.  Too much dampness in a coop can cause frostbite.
5. It makes cleaning the coop easier.
6. It give the ducks a nice place to bed down for the night.

Ducks are Messy

As far as the mess goes…  we heard the same thing, “Ducks are a disaster.”

We do not fence in our chickens (or ducks), so I guess we don’t see the mess as much.  Go here to see how to keep chickens (and ducks) the redneck way.

Ducks Need Water

They do need water. Like, really really need water.  Ducks have to have access to water each time they eat in order to wash their eyes and nostrils.  They need water deep enough to dip their heads into it – this prevents infections.  Water is really important.

Kids plastic pools work – but will get messy.  Our ducks can trash clean water in no time.  It is exhausting trying to keep the water clean in a little pool.  You can go that route, but just be prepared that someone will be dumping and refilling pools often.  If you share my idea of clean water it may be a daily chore  which is not fun.

We have a little spring on our property that always has water in it.  It was the size of a puddle.  We used a back-hoe with a big scoop on it and took a few shovel fulls of dirt out of that puddle & it became a little, tiny, duck-sized bathing pool (pictured above).  It is just down the woodline from the coop, so the flock has easy access to it.  Our ducks love the little pool.  It’s not huge, it’s not a pond, but it’s a (mostly) fresh source of water.  They love it and it provides them with the water they need.

If you can let them roam free – your ducks will be nothing but fun.  Just be sure they have water & a place to sleep.  If free-range isn’t a viable option – setting up a couple of different runs may give your land the rest it needs to support those messy ducks.

With all that being said, I will tell you that our ducks are CHERISHED!!!  One is named “Ping” the other is “Filbert.”  They are funny, adorable and so fun.  Watching them waddle around makes everyone laugh.  They never stop quacking and are always on the move.

We’ve decided that the ducks have conversations non-stop.  Here’s how it goes:

• Duck # 1: “I say quack – you say quack…Ready?”
• Duck #1:  “Quack!”
• Duck #2: “Quack!”
• Duck #1:  “Quack!”
• Duck #2: “Quack!”
• Duck #1:  “Quack!”
• Duck #2: “Quack!”
• Repeat this forever……

They circle our house, our fields, our barns.  They venture a good 700 feet from the coop where they sleep each night.

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Quack!

Candi