Animals – Your Homestead Journey

We have so much fun with this homesteading thing. I never knew that it would turn into such a rewarding way of life. I love trying new things and having my kids experience these things. We have had chickens on our homestead for a while but ducks were a new one. Our friends bought us a couple and before I got them I wanted to make sure I knew what I needed and at least was a little bit prepared. I figured I would share with you what I learned. But don't let me fool you. I usually just hop right in and learn as I go. Housing Let's start with housing for your ducks. My plan was to just put my new ducks in with my chickens but I figured I should do a little research first. Here is what I found. What shelter do ducks need? Ducks are very tough animals. They do very well with little coverage. Unlike chickens who need lots of space and are very picky when it comes to housing, ducks are not picky at all. If you provide ducks with a place to get out of the elements they will be happy. Ducks don't mind the weather but if there is extreme weather such as hail, storms, etc. They like to have a place to go to. If you live in Michigan like me and have lots of snow and cold it is nice for them to have a place to get their feet out of the snow. Even if they don't have a coop off of the ground if you can give them a little extra straw or hay so that they can have something to stand on they will be happy. What do ducks need in winter? A place to keep their feet dry As I mentioned above make sure to have a good layer of straw in their pen or coop. Another thing you can do it lay down some wood and then the hay or straw. This way if they move around the hay or straw they will still have the wood instead of the cold ground. How cold is too cold for ducks? Ducks can handle temperatures as low as 20 degrees. They generally are okay if it dips down below that but you just want to watch and make sure they are taken care of. If the temperatures dip below that for too long and they don't have a place to get their feet out of the cold they can develop frostbite on their feet. If you have a pen or coop lined with straw or hay you should be totally fine. You can also put a light in their coop and you will have no worries at all. Chickens start getting fussy when the temperatures dip below 45, so the fact that ducks can handle colder temperatures was a huge bonus to me. The reason ducks do better in the cold is that they were created with a nice thick layer of body fat and waterproof feathers. What do ducks sleep in? Ducks will sleep in their pen! Unlike chickens, who want to roost and have their nesting boxes ducks don't need any of that. Ducks are very low maintenance. They actually prefer to have just a pen with some straw or hay on the bottom. They will make their own little bed in the corners of the coop or pen. It is important that you have some kind of shelter for your duck to go into at night so that it can stay safe. If you choose to free-range your ducks that if perfectly okay, they just need to be away from the threat of predators at night. You really don't need anything fancy. Even an old dog house will work. They are not picky they just want a dry and safe place to lay their head at night. Just make sure that their shelter is fenced in so that they are safe while they sleep. How many square feet do you need per duck? Ducks need 3-5 square feet apiece inside of the pen or coop. And they need about 15 square feet in the run. But remember if you are keeping them in the run during the day you will need to have a kiddie pool for them. So when you are figuring out your measurements make sure to account for each duck and the pool. Unless your ducks have access to a pond and will be able to free-range during the day and get to the water. That leads to the next topic... Feeding Now onto feeding your ducks. There are lots of questions when it comes to feeding ducks and hopefully, we will go over most of them today. I will be talking about your pet/farm ducks but ducks are ducks and the answers to these questions will apply to wild ducks as well. If anything wild ducks are even hardier then your domesticated ducks. A balanced diet You want to make sure your ducks have a well-balanced diet. You will feed your ducks about 90% pellets. (If they are not free-range) But you want to also feed them your food scraps and if they have access to free-range they will eat other things as well. Here is some duck food on amazon. Check into the pricing because I am sure it will be cheaper at your local store I just wanted to show you want to look for. How much do ducks eat in a day? This will really depend on the type of ducks you have and if you are raising them for meat or eggs. But you can guess that your ducks will eat 7oz - 10 oz a day. When you compare this to chickens it is about the same or a little more than your chickens will eat. But if you decide to free-range you really don't have to feed them at all. You will probably just want a little feed to give them at night to get back into their pen. If you have both ducks and chickens they can eat the same thing. And a little tip: try going to your local grain mill and see if they sell feed. I am able to get the feed from my local mill for anywhere between $20-$25 for 100 lb. This will cut down on your feeding cost by quite a bit. Is it okay to feed ducks bread? It is okay to feed ducks bread. But there are better options. If you are only feeding your ducks bread then just like us humans they will not be getting the proper food groups they need. They will be malnourished if all they ever get is bread. The problem with the bread more falls into the wild duck category in ponds where tourists come and all the ducks get is bread. If you are feeding your ducks a good diet and throw them some bread every now and then they will be fine. Can you feed ducks rice? Yes, you can feed your ducks rice. They actually really love rice and the cool thing is that you can feed them rice cooked or uncooked. You just want to make sure that the rice is not moldy. This goes for the bread as well. Ducks can get very sick from mold. Can you feed ducks popcorn? Yes, you can feed ducks popcorn. But as I mentioned above it most common to feed ducks bread, popcorn and other types of junk food. Just like us, they need a balanced diet. What do ducks eat in the wild? When we talk about ducks and if they can survive without food and if they can withstand the winter we forget that there are wild ducks and they do just fine on their own. Wild ducks will eat... InsectsFrogsAlgaePlantsGrassLeavesWeedsCrayfishSeedsGrainsSnailsWormsSlugsFishFish eggs So if your ducks have the ability to free-range they can get a lot of their own food and this will also cut down on your food bill. Obviously, if your ducks are locked up and do not have access to these things they will need to be taken care of with other means. If your ducks are not able to free-range take a look at this list and try to feed these things to your ducks. I will provide you with a few ideas on how to do this. Mow your lawn and then rake up the grass and feed the grass clippings to your ducks.Clean out your pond (if you have one) and feed what you got out of your pond to your ducks.Rake your yard and give all of the leaves to your ducksWeed your garden and throw all of your weeds into the duck pen.Go fishing and feed the smaller fish to your ducks Any of these ideas would be a great way to help supplement your ducks feed and are a much healthier diet for your ducks than just giving them all pellets. What to feed ducklings? You will feed your baby ducks the same as you do the adult ducks. The only difference is that you will give them starter feed which looks like this. Watering How much water do ducks drink a day? Ducks need a lot of water. They will need about 1 liter of water a day. (per duck) They also like to put their whole head in the water so if you don't have a kiddie pool or a place for them to do this make sure your water dish is deep enough for them to submerge their head. How long can ducks go without water? Ducks can go about 8 hours without water. It is best to make sure they have fresh food and water twice a day. If you set up a system so that they can have access to food and water all day this will be best! Ducklings need food and water constantly until they are 4-6 weeks old. They are so small at this point that I would not risk letting them run out of food or water. Do ducks need water overnight? Ducks do not need water overnight. They will most likely sleep most of the night so this will not be a problem. If you make sure to keep your ducks fed and watered throughout the day then they will be perfectly fine. But if you have their water just always available day and night you don't even have to think about it. That is what we have. But again remember that your ducks are very hardy animals. They can go a few days without food and they will be fine. What is the best way to water ducks? The tricky part about watering ducks or really any animal is keeping the water clean. Ducks especially like to get into their water and make a mess of it. So what is the best way to do this? Well... Make sure that you separate their drinking water and "playing" water if you can. If they don't have access to a pond then you can put a kiddie pool in their run for them to splash around in. This way you can keep their drinking water a little cleaner. Well maybe...They still like to make a mess. As far as a waterer you can make a DIY Waterer or you can buy one. We made a waterer for our chickens that will work just fine for ducks as well. If you want to see how we made that you can see that here. But if you want to buy one they will look something like this. Just remember that your ducks will need a lot of water. So if you have lots of ducks you will want a waterer that will hold quite a bit of water. Honestly, our DIY waterer is a great idea for ducks. And is very affordable. Free ranged ducks What do free-range ducks eat? Free ranged ducks will eat the same thing as wild ducks if they have access to it. Again the list is as follows. Insects Frogs Algae Plants Grass Leaves Weeds Crayfish Seeds Grains Snails Worms Slugs Fish Fish eggs Obviously if you don't have a body of water the ducks will have a hard time eating fish and fish eggs. But they will be able to eat the other things on the list. So if you free range your ducks can they get enough from just free ranging? I tried that with my chickens and it did not really work. They needed a little bit more. So I was not sure if ducks would be the same or not. This is what I found... Do free-range ducks need feed? No, free range ducks do not need feed. If they are truly free range, meaning they have acess to the things in the list above then they can fulfill their dietary needs. They know what their bodies need and will eat the proper things. But if they can't get to the things on the list then they will need pellets. The pellets will also provide them with their needs but is obviously not as good as if they can eat from nature. Do Ducks put themselves to bed? No, ducks will not put themselves to bed. This might come as a surprise because if you have had chickens you will be used to them just coming back to the coop at night. But ducks are not that way. You will have to herd them and guide them back to the coop. This won't be that hard though becuase they like to stay close together. There are different ways to get your ducks back to their pen quickly and painlessly. Also, refering back to the question above it is nice to have some feed on hand in order to get the ducks back into the pen at night. But we will talk about that more in a minute. Lets look at the best ways to get your ducks back in at night. 1. Food The best ways to get your ducks into the pen at night is to put feed in the pen. If they have been free ranging all day and have not had any pellets they will be beyond excited for food and come running. 2. Quaking This might sound silly but just hear me out. If you don't want to give your ducks any kind of pellets or food you can lure them back into the pen by standing in the pen area and quaking. If this alone does not work you can put some water in their dishes to get their attention. Okay, lets continue our questions on free ranging ducks. At what age can ducks be set free? At 7-9 weeks. Ducks need to have all of their feathers in before they can be out in the elements. They can enjoy some time outside before their feathers come in but they can't regolate tempature very well so they will not be able to be outside in the elements at a young age. How many free-range ducks per acre? You can have 60-70 ducks on an acre. Now this number will vary on the type of land that you have. If you just have all grass and no pond then you will not be able to hvae as many becuase your ducks will not be able to access as much of the food that they need and will depleat what they do have sooner. But if they have access to everything on that list you will be able to have more ducks on your land. How to train free-range ducks So last but definitely not least...training your free-range ducks. We talked about how they don't know how to come back to their pen at night so can they be truly free-ranged? or will they go off of your land and not come back? Your free-ranged ducks will wander and if they get too far they could get hurt because they have no way to protect themselves. So it would not be a bad idea to just have a mesh fence around the area that you want to keep your ducks. Like I said they will usually stay fairly close but you just never know. So you can test it and see what happens. Free-range pros and cons I am always an advocate of free-range but there can be some drawbacks. Let's take a look at a few pros and cons. Pros Your ducks will have the healthiest dietYour ducks will be the happiest with unlimited spaceyour ducks will stay healthier with all the room and fresh airYour ducks will eat lots of insects Cons Your ducks (most likely) can't fly so they can't get away from predatorsYour ducks will be out roaming so you will have to go bring them in each nightYour ducks might eat things you don't want them to (such as your landscaping or garden)Your ducks will lay their eggs anywhere so you will have to search for your eggs (if you have egg layers) These are just a few of the things to consider when you are deciding whether you should free-range or keep them in a pen. Ducks and chickens As I mentioned we had chickens already and I wanted to put my new ducks in with my chickens but I was not sure how they would do so I wanted to do a little research to see if the chickens and ducks would do okay together and this is what I found. Do ducks and chickens eat the same food? Yes, ducks and chickens eat the same food. You might have a problem doing this because the ducks might eat all the food. But test it out and see what happens. You can always let the chickens to the food first so that they can get a little head start. There is technically chicken and duck food but you can just go ahead and feed your ducks chicken feed. Ducks do need a little bit higher levels of niacin than chickens. You can add some brewers yeast to their food to help with this. By adding that it will help the ducks bones to grow correctly. And it will be beneficial to the chickens as well. Will ducks kill chickens? Ducks can kill chickens. But chickens can also kill each other. There are so many variables. If you try to put chickens and ducks together after they are adults they will most likely try to fight and they could kill each other. If the ducks are trying to mate with the chickens they could kill the chicken. And so on. So you just want to keep an eye out and if you see anything that does not look right then you may want to think about separating them. Can ducks and chickens mate? The duck will be the one trying to mate because it has a sexual organ and the rooster does not. And this can cause problems. They can get aggressive and sometimes even kill the chicken. So again this is just something that you need to keep an eye on. If you see this becoming a problem you will want to make sure to seperate the duck and the chicken. Now this does not happen all the time but I just want to put it all out there so that you know what could happen and just to keep an eye out. Conclusion Homesteading is so fun and always keeps me coming back for more. It is so awesome to try new things and experience things with my kids. They love taking care of the chickens and were so excited to get ducks. I try to be prepared before we get something new and learn a little bit about it before we start. I really did not know that much about ducks before we started this journey and I was so thankful to get a little knowledge under my belt before we welcomed these little guys into our homestead. I would say that the biggest takeaways before you get your ducks would be... Housing Make sure you have a pen. Your ducks will need a place to get out of the elements and get their feet off of the ground. They don't need anything fancy. They don't need nesting boxes or even a place to roost. All they need is a simple pen.Make sure your ducks have 3-5 square feet in their pen and 15 square feet in the run. (If they are not free-ranging. If they are all you have to worry about is the pen.) Feeding Make sure your ducks have a balanced diet. This can be from free-ranging or from pellets. Or could also be a mixture of both.Feed them a healthy diet. Just like humans, it is not good for them to be filled up with bread. So you can feed them bread, popcorn, Rice and so on but just don't let that be the bulk of their diet. Watering Ducks need lots and lots of water. If they can have access to a pond this is the best thing for them. If that's, not an option a kiddie pool is fine. But Try to keep their drinking water and their playing water separate.They can go about 8 hours without water but its best to keep them constantly watered. Free-ranged ducks Free ranged ducks can fulfill their dietary needs from the wild if you allow them to free-range or they can be fed pellets.Free ranged ducks can be let loose but it is best to surround their area with mesh to keep them safe from predators.They can be put outside at 7-9 weeks.If you want your ducks to free range you will need to train them to come back at night. Ducks and chickens Ducks and chickens can live togetherThey usually won't harm each other but just keep on eye on themThey will try to mate so keep an eye on that as well I hope this was helpful to you as you prepare for your next part of your homesteading journey. Whether you have ducks for eggs, food or just as a pet I hope you have fun with your ducks! A couple more articles that might interest you... https://yourhomesteadjourney.com/chicken-feeding-everything-you-need-to-know/ https://yourhomesteadjourney.com/are-free-ranged-goats-a-possibility-all-you-need-to-know/