Reply to Anyone ever raise ducks?

Forum Index » Pets

Reply to "Anyone ever raise ducks?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I raise and sell Khaki Campbell ducks and eggs (and heritage turkeys, meat and layer chickens), NPIP/USDA poultry producer.   [b]If you have a fox problem you need to fix that before getting any more birds, they will keep coming back until you kill them.[/b]  Fox first, birds next.

The ducks are my favorite (next to Phil, my pet turkey), they are very social, fun to watch, and their eggs are fabulous for baking due to the high fat content in the yolks.  I have a real market with my duck egg sales with local bakeries.  They free range on our farm and they are amazing at taking care of ticks and other bad bugs.  I tolerate the chickens because the eggs are the most popular with clients, but the ducks have my heart.

My tips:

Coop/predator control: I recommend hardware cloth instead of chicken wire; predators cannot chew through it, you need to make that coop into a poultry Ft. Knox.   We trap and kill, focusing on population management at our farm, I lose a few birds a year, but it is manageable.  Head over to Backyard Chickens.com for helpful predator proofing tips, they have a separate forum for raising ducks.

Select a non-meat breed like Khakis or Cayugas.  The meat breeds (Pekins) will get too heavy and their legs will break and you will have to put them in your freezer (learned this the hard way).  The females quack, the males grunt, and the females are LOUD, which is not a problem if you have a farm and no neighbors, but if you're in the city or burbs, your neighbors may not like to hear constant quacking.   The ducklings will need a different type of starter feed, they need a higher protein content of at least 26% to start otherwise their muscles don't develop enough to support the leg bones and weight of the bird.  I buy game bird feed at the feed store and start my ducklings and turkey poults on that every spring.

Water - no, not necessary.  Right now mine do not have a tank, tub, or kiddie pool to wade in.  They need enough water to clear their nostrils in the morning, so a water pan is sufficient.  I keep my ducks with a flock of laying hens and my turkeys, everyone gets along fine, no one is more work than the other.   Ducks can be dirty, but don't keep water in their coop and that helps a lot.

You may have to clip wings to prevent flying.

The hatcheries are having problems shipping right now with the USPS (the hatchery I use every year just sent out an email saying no shipments until the end of March), your best bet for ducklings is local off the farm exchange facebook groups or through the feed stores who are just starting "chick season."[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics