Duck Keeping 101

Ducks are funny creatures! From the way they walk, to the way they talk, they are very different than chickens!

Ducks are an interesting creature...

They don't exactly give you the same "ease" of caring for them that chickens do! In fact, they make the whole experience quite a bit harder, in my book. They do have their perks though and are definitely not all bad. What they lack in friendliness they make up for in silliness, which is generally a fair trade. But if you have had chickens before getting your first duck, there's a few things you should be prepared for.

We were about eight months into having our chickens when my husband and I stopped by Coastals to get feed and I went over, "just to look" as all poultry-obsessed wives do. I had been debating whether I wanted to try ducks because I had heard bad things about keeping them with chickens. However, our middle daughter, Daphne, is obsessed with ducks and has been for her whole life. In fact, her first word other than Dad was actually "duck," because we used to take her to the duck ponds across from our house almost every day. When Daphne saw the last three little, yellow ducks in the bin, she did all of the convincing for me! Her sister was helpful, and Dad caved pretty quickly. Now the ducks are more Daphne and Nick's pets than mine! Daphne goes to check them first thing every morning and says goodnight to them before they go to bed. She's a great duck momma!

On the downside, most of the things I was warned about ducks turned out to be true - they are wet so they are very messy, they poop a LOT, they talk too much (the girls do, anyway), they are far less friendly than the chickens even when handled daily from babies forward, they act like you want to kill them every time you move near them, they smell worse, they dirty everything, especially water sources, they get into everything, and they do hurt hens and smaller female ducks during breeding season. These are the primary negatives about owning ducks. There are caveats to each of these and ways around them, but yes, these are true facts that I have found out the hard way in most cases.

Benefits of Keeping Ducks

Here are some good things about ducks before I chase you off entirely - first, they are hilarious! They walk funny, talk funny, swim funny, play funny, eat funny, and do just about everything in life in a funny way! They are not very coordinated and I have not found them to be very smart so far, so it makes for a silly combination of waddling, quacking and falling. They literally will step on their other foot and face plant. They chase flied by bending down, sticking their wings out and flapping them as they run with their mouths wide open trying to catch anything in the air! What a funny sight!

Aside from being a comedic relief at the end of a stressful day, they also are pretty helpful little pets. Ducks love to eat slugs and snails, so if you are in a very wet climate, like we are, you probably have a bunch of slugs, snails or both! If you have a garden, which you probably do if you are into chickens and ducks this far, you probably loathe the slimy little creatures that show up in the middle of the night just to eat your spinach or tomatoes! Well, ducks would love to help provide you a far healthier alternative to pesticides and snail bait - ducks! They are far easier on the garden than the chickens are as well. Though they will not hesitate to snap at some fresh lettuce, they aren't going to bother your cucumbers, tomatoes, strawberries, etc. They also are easier on the vegetation altogether as they "graze" on greenery rather than peck it to roots and then kick those out to like the chickens to. Many times, you can turn them out in your fields or orchards and let them do away at your problem for you! Apple orchards are notorious for attracting snails and slugs and your ducks can't do any damage to apple trees so they are the perfect solution to a long time problem.

A big plus is that their eggs are amazing for baking, so if you are a person who loves to bake, ducks could be your new best friend! I have found their eggs make my baked goods fluffier, lighter and softer. Their eggs are also usually bigger than even the largest chicken eggs, especially if you have larger breeds like our Pekin ducks. The yoke is a bit bigger in duck eggs as well as the albumen, which is what makes them better for baking. Chicken eggs also have more water in them than duck eggs (strange!), which causes the eggs to be runnier.

Another plus is that you can keep girls AND boys in the city areas, so you would be able to make your own baby duckies without breaking any laws or making your neighbors angry! Actually, I think it is quite funny that the female ducks are the loud ones! We have one Pekin duck, one of our first ducks, who absolutely never stops quacking all day long. And I do mean all day! You can hear her outside from in the house just talking away! And when you go out to her, she talks even more. Ugh. It can be exhausting! However, we kept her boyfriends (also pictured above, we ended up with two boys and one girl!) and they made baby ducklings recently, so it was worth it. Because of this, it is a lot of fun for people who do want to try breeding a time or two but live in town so are limited and unable to keep roosters.

Getting Ready for Your First Ducklings

To prepare to bring home your first little ducklings is not that different than getting ready for your first chicks. Ducklings need a few main things - a cage or brooder, heat from a heat lamp or a brooder plate, bedding, food and a dish, and a water dish. We will start at the beginning - a brooder or cage. Due to the shape of their feet, ducklings and ducks do not do very well on wire bottom cages. They are clumsy little guys, and their feet are very liable to get stuck in between the holes. There are many options to try to create a brooder for your ducklings, but remember that for the first few weeks, they need heat so make sure to not use something that is too "open" until they are older. For instance, when they are a few weeks old, people often use dog crates for their ducklings. This is a great option once they are a few weeks old, but at first, they need something that is a bit more closed in.

Some people splurge and use the aluminum animal troughs sold at feed stores for their brooders. These are great! But also very expensive. So do not feel obligated to purchase these. There are different brooders online that are pop-up style sold on amazon. A lot of people are choosing to use different styles of kiddie-pools or puppy pens that are enclosed. We usually use large plastic totes to start with and then upgrade them to bigger cages as they get older.

A note about their growth - Ducks grow up to four times as fast as chickens! You will go to sleep at night and when you wake up, you will feel as though they have literally grown over night. If you have had chickens before ducks, be prepared for their very quick growth rates. This is good and bad for many reasons which I will discuss below, but for this portion, we are discussing the fact that they will need a larger cage pretty quickly. Thought should be given about where they can go when they get bigger but are not old enough to go outside in the coop yet. Many people get ducks and then come to this fork in the road when they are a month old and halfway grown up already! (Yes, in two months, most breeds are full grown!)

When we start out, our ducklings go into a large tote together with a wire lid on top that my husband has rigged up for me. I attach a heat lamp to the top of it and clamp it on for safety. I use pine wood chips for bedding. Do not ever use cedar chips on small animals or poultry - the dust particles get into their lungs and causes infection or pneumonia and it is incredibly bad to use as bedding for small animals in general.

There are other options - you can use shredded newspaper, recycled paper bedding which is sold at pet shops, hay, or some people use puppy pee pads. This seems to work better on young ducklings than chicks because their toes and nails are different so its harder for them to get stuck up on the padding. They also do not use their feet to scratch for food like chicks do, so they have less of a tendency to get their toes tied anyway.

Once you have your brooder and bedding, next is your heat source. We use heat lights that we clamp to the sides of the bins or hang from a bar above them. Heat lamps are very dangerous and should be monitored extremely carefully, especially around children and other pets. They are a very big reason why barn fires and even house fires are started, so please be careful setting yours up so that it can not be knocked over when it is unattended. However, your ducklings need to stay at 90+ degrees for the first week, so you do need a heat source.

Heating pads have been used by many people in the past but I have seen horror stories where they have burned chicks little feet. As ducklings have larger pads and softer feet, they will probably get burned easier. I advised to avoid using them unless it is temporarily for a sick or injured animal under observation the entire time.

Another option is a heat plate which seems like a very safe alternative, but they are more expensive and harder to find than heat lights. Heat lights can be found at almost every feed store and pet store. Heat plates are less likely to cause a fire though and people have reported their chicks like them better because they can go and get under the heat source when they want to or away when they do not.

Next is their water dish, which you would initially think should be a deep or shallow pan of water. Not true. Baby ducklings can drown very easily and their feathers are down, so they are not water proof or even water resistant until they are over a month old. Therefore, you should get a chicken water bottle where they can only dip their beaks into it and not actually get into the water. You will need to refill and clean their water bottle much more often than chicks though because the babies do love to play in the water anyway!

Their food dish is probably the easiest part of the equation. You can get a fancy chicken or duck feeder or you can simply give them a dish of food. They do have duckling starter as opposed to chick started and you can get it medicated or regular like chicks also. Ducklings have a higher need for niacin and a few other components, so it is preferred to get them Duck starter for the first few weeks to month or two.

You might also consider getting chick probiotics or vitamins which you add to their water. This is always recommended to give them a good start so they do not get sick. Ducks make messes a lot more and are always wet and getting everything else wet, so they probably are exposed to more bacteria than chickens, I would imagine.

Now you are ready to bring home your ducklings! Which breed will you pick? Where will you get them? Questions, questions, questions...

So You Think You Are Ready for Your First Duck?

Where are you going to get your new ducklings from? When are you getting them? What will the season be? How many will you get? What breed do you want? There are so many questions to answer and you probably feel overwhelmed!

For your first ducks, I recommend either going to a feed store and getting a few or finding a breeder in your area that has the kind you are looking for. If you do choose to purchase your ducks online, check the reviews and comments to see how the hatchery packages their babies. Some do a great job of getting you live ducklings and chicks, and others have a harder time. Weather also plays a big role in whether your babies will get to you quickly and safely. I also have found that ordering online can be difficult for the small person because the bigger stores and such order early in the year before you have considered getting a duck! So they will be sold out until late into the season oftentimes.

Ducks do grow incredibly fast and most will be fully grown within two months, so getting them later in the year is easier on them than it is on chicks. Ducks also are hardier in cold climates and obviously do very well in wet climates, so it is easier to get them later in the year than chicks.

What breeds are you considering - Do you want ducks primarily for eggs? For pleasure? As meat? Or two keep your yard trim?

Khaki Campbells are a popular option right now for people who want lots of duck eggs. They are smaller and more friendly than many of the breeds. Pekins, on the other hand, have been kept for meat for a long time in Asian countries. They grow to be as large as a goose and cannot fly. Our boys got over twelve pounds each before we sold them to someone for processing. They are less friendly though. Cayugas are a North American breed and are almost pure black color with green, blue and purple sheens. Their eggs can be gray to almost black or purple in color! (The Livestock Conservancy)

Anconas are very pretty ducks that are black and white or liver, blue, chocolate or other colors with white making almost a magpie design. They are great layers of 210-250+ eggs a year that can even be blue in color! They also are an American heritage breed, so they are a wonderful breed for preservation. Welsh Harlequins can even outdo them at 300+ eggs a year which are white and tasty. They also are beautifully colored and marked and people report they have calm personalities. (The Livestock Conservancy)

Once you have figured out what breed you want, located your seller and your ducklings and have everything prepared, go get your ducks!

Caring for Your Ducklings

When you bring home your little babies, you are going to think they are the cutest, sweetest, fluffiest little things you have ever seen - and you would be right! I actually have debated whether a chick or a duckling is cuter and I kind of lean toward the duckling... I mean, from it's cute, fat face to their fluffy little feathers, what could really be cuter? Then they waddle and your heart really melts! And you pick them up and they "Peep! Peep!" at you - yup, there goes the whole body hitting the floor in awe at their cuteness!

Yes, indeed, ducklings are cute, but did you know they will act like you are a murderer almost every time you look in on them? I have talked to many people that have ducks and their feedback is always the same - no matter how much you handle them as a baby, they still act like your a vicious animal trying to rip out their hearts. When they get older they will really scream and run from you! But again, it is hilarious to watch!

For the first day or two, I advise that you just observe them instead of holding them a bunch. When you change out their water (which you will very often with ducklings!), reaching your hand in and out of the cage will expose them to you a bit. You will need to change their bedding every day, or at least scoop out the bad parts. Chicks you can wait for every other day, but ducklings get messy far quicker and thus, they are smellier. You will want to clean them often!

They will not get their food as dirty as chicks do because they do not kick the bedding and scratch at the floor like chicks. They do peck around, but they prefer playing in water.

After a few days, start picking them up and talking to them a few times a day so they start getting used to you. If yours came pre-sexed, they should have ID rings around their feet that needs to be cut off after a couple days. Make sure you check all of your ducklings legs to see if they have an ID badge to remove.

In the next week, they will grow quite a bit. You can offer them a bit larger water dish now that they can get their feet into, but again, be careful not to make it too deep because they can still easily drown at this age. Keep handling them daily so they are more used to you every day.

After the second week, your ducks should be quite a bit larger and I am sure you are surprised! You can start taking them for supervised swims in the bathtub now if you would like, but make sure they get good and dry after and go back under a heat light so they do not catch cold. Also, make sure you are steadily increasing their feed amount based on their new, quickly growing size.

After a month, they should be half way grown up now. They should be starting to have some of their adult feathers and they are probably looking quite tall and gangly right now! They should be changing colors and getting their adult plumage in also. If you have a breed in which the male is a different pattern or color than the female, you should start to see a clear difference between them now. As newborns and young babies, most ducklings are all the same color and pattern other than sex-links. It isn't until about a month old that they start to look like adult birds.

At this point, you can offer them a larger dish of water that they will play in very often. You will need to clean and refill their water basically nonstop at this point! You probably have upgraded them to a larger cage which can be a wire dog crate, rabbit or small animal cage, large bin or tub or other pen you put together. They should not need a heat source anymore unless it is during the winter and it is very cold. They also will be going through food quickly. An option is to give them lots of table scraps which they will pick through and decide what they like.

I have found my ducks to be more omnivores and herbivores than my chickens, who love to hunt and eat meat when offered. The ducks do not seem to care for meat and tend to like the carbs instead like many of us do. They go for pastas and breads which are not healthy for them but they love to eat! I offer them salad and they decline. They do love watermelon!

My ducks are always very friendly and talkative to me at about a month old to two months old. They kind of like attention and some can be friendly. My Pekins were not as friendly as my Khaki Campbells even at this age, so do your research and figure out what is your goals with the breed you want before you choose.

If you are going to be processing your ducks, most of the time you aim for six to eight weeks from what I have seen. Therefore, you should probably be "fattening them up" at this stage. You can get cracked corn and other finishing feeds for them from the feed stores for this stage.

At four to six weeks old, you should be moving them outside during the daytime so they can begin learning to forage and interacting with your other animals. Make sure you keep them in a run with a top if you have predators in the air, because ducks are a big target for hawks, eagles and other birds of prey. Especially if you have white ducks like our poor Pekins!

By eight weeks old, they should be outside full time and basically full grown. Some ducks only grow to be four pounds and some can grow to be twelve plus - like our Pekin drakes! They also have a group of ducks called "Call Ducks" which are almost like bantam chickens. They do not produce hardly any eggs and are not good for meat, so they are purely ornamental pets. Some can be only a pound or two!

Ducks love to eat bugs! They chase flies with their mouths open, devour slugs and snails off of the trees and out of the stumps, find yummy grubs and worms, love to eat up the mosquito larvae if given a chance and will go after anything buggy they can find! Since having ducks, I honestly have not seen a slug around. They keep our garden free of bugs while the chickens chase down the mice. What great teamwork!

Do you hate trimming your weeds and grass? Some ducks and even geese species are great at keeping your lawn mowed! They will even weed your garden for you if given the chance.

Female ducks are loud! At least my Pekin female is a loud one. She never is quiet, ever! But my little Khaki Campbell girl only makes noise during feeding time or if she is being messed with or wants something. They do learn to talk to you and communicate with you in their own way. They are a very talkative bird!

When you think of a duck, what comes to mind? Water! Yes, ducks need a lot of water. They dirty their water very quickly too. They are not always smart enough to figure out your ramps to get them in and out of the pool. Be prepared to constantly be changing it up to try to accommodate them or fix something with their water. It is always dirty and it is always changing.

We use kiddie pools and have many throughout the yard. The ducks have a few times a day that they will each go into the pools and bathe and play for a minute while they "Quack" in excitement! We also have small bins of water and barrels throughout the yard so that they have varying sources of water to choose from. If you clean the water, they will go right after you and play in it until it is dirty again. They are ridiculous!

Our girls, Daphne and Lily, playing with their Pekin ducklings outside

A Few Warnings on Ducks

While ducks are awesome, there is no doubt, they do have a few downfalls. Male ducks (drakes) tens to become aggressive during the spring and summer months when it is prime time for breeding. This goes around to many domestic birds, especially geese and those more wild. We keep Pekin ducks and they were our first ducks. We had chickens first and the ducks and chickens were always kept together without a problem. However, during their first adult springtime, they became overly...ahem...excited with the younger, smaller female ducks (duck, not drake), their duck girlfriend and even the chickens. Unfortunately, before we knew they were becoming extra excited, they had jumped onto and broken the neck or back of one of our Khaki females. It was very sad and it took us a while to figure it out.

The second time it happened is when we understood what we going on - they somehow got back into the pen with the baby Khakis that were only about a month old at the time, and tried to breed her like they apparently did the one before. Instead of paralyzing her, they injured the back of her head, neck and one of her eyes. I thought she would lose her eye but thankfully, she did not. The boys were quickly separated at this point and they had also been caught pinning down a hen and "helping each other" with our female Pekin duck. They had to go, unfortunately. They became too much.

Their girlfriend is Tulip and she has hatched and is raising a horde of replacement ducklings for us right now. Hopefully there will be extra girls to keep and a boy with a better temperament to replace their fathers. I will update this page once I know how they turn out and if they are as sexually aggressive as our first two boys!

A Few Final Duck Words

A few of the main positives for keeping ducks are:

If you are looking at a good poultry animal that is versatile, ducks are a great option. They are wonderful for homesteaders who need meat, eggs and help in the garden.
They are pretty easy to care for and have less health scared than chickens.
They grow much quicker, reach their max size four times as fast and begin producing eggs much faster also.
It is easy to keep both boys and girls in the city because boys do not crow or make any loud noises, but instead are the quiet ones of the bunch making only hushed "quacks" in almost hoarse voices while the girls will beam with excitement next to them.
Ducks do well in cold, wet climates which is harder for chickens to tolerate.
Some ducks can lay 300+ eggs a year, competing with the best of the chicken breeds.
Ducks raise their own young and become broody easily.
Duck eggs are very healthy for you and contain more vitamins, nutrients, good fat and protein than chicken eggs.
Some people that are allergic to chicken eggs are not allergic to duck eggs.
Duck eggs are great for baking and make baked good more fluffy, light and flavorful.
Some ducks lay black eggs! They also can lay white, cream, gray, blue, green or other colors!
Do you hate slugs and snails? If you do, you should get a duck!
If you need a good laugh, ducks are a great pet to keep around! They trip over their own feet, act like paranoid spazoids, and talk in hilarious tones to you. Watch them waddle and try not to smile, I dare you!

References

The Livestock Conservancy (2020) Conservation Priority List - Ducks, The Livestock Conservancy, https://livestockconservancy.org/heritage-breeds/conservation-priority-list/

Steele, L. (2023) 12 Reasons Why Duck Eggs are Better than Chicken Eggs, Fresh Eggs Daily, https://www.fresheggsdaily.blog/2019/11/duck-eggs-vs-chicken-eggs-12-reasons.html

Von Frank, A. (November 1, 2022) Duck Eggs vs. Chicken Eggs, 7-Point Comparison, Tyrant Farms, https://www.tyrantfarms.com/5-things-you-didnt-know-about-duck-eggs/#:~:text=A%20small%20percentage%20of%20people,duck%20eggs%20with%20no%20proble

Zelman, K., RD, LD, MPH (March 23, 2023) Health Benefits of Duck Eggs, Web MD, https://www.webmd.com/diet/health-benefits-duck-eggs