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…

1. Insects
2. Frogs
3. Algae
4. Plants
5. Grass
6. Leaves
7. Weeds
8. Crayfish
9. Seeds
10. Grains
11. Snails
12. Worms
13. Slugs
14. Fish
15. Fish 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.

1. Mow your lawn and then rake up the grass and feed the grass clippings to your ducks.
2. Clean out your pond (if you have one) and feed what you got out of your pond to your ducks.
3. Rake your yard and give all of the leaves to your ducks
4. Weed your garden and throw all of your weeds into the duck pen.
5. 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

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

1. Your ducks will have the healthiest diet
2. Your ducks will be the happiest with unlimited space
3. your ducks will stay healthier with all the room and fresh air
4. Your ducks will eat lots of insects

Cons

1. Your ducks (most likely) can’t fly so they can’t get away from predators
2. Your ducks will be out roaming so you will have to go bring them in each night
3. Your ducks might eat things you don’t want them to (such as your landscaping or garden)
4. 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

1. 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.
2. 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

1. 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.
2. 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

1. 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.
2. They can go about 8 hours without water but its best to keep them constantly watered.

Free-ranged ducks

1. Free ranged ducks can fulfill their dietary needs from the wild if you allow them to free-range or they can be fed pellets.
2. Free ranged ducks can be let loose but it is best to surround their area with mesh to keep them safe from predators.
3. They can be put outside at 7-9 weeks.
4. If you want your ducks to free range you will need to train them to come back at night.

Ducks and chickens

1. Ducks and chickens can live together
2. They usually won’t harm each other but just keep on eye on them
3. They 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…

When I got chickens I had no idea what I was doing. But over the last few years, I have learned what to feed my chickens and what not to feed my chickens. Believe it or not, what you feed your chickens will affect your egg supply (with layers) and growth with (meat birds). So what should you feed your chickens?

1. Poultry Pellets
2. Grains & Corn
3. Table Scraps
4. Grass Clippings & Weeds
5. Calcium Supplement

More on the best chicken diet…

The list I have provided above is the absolute best chicken diet. But if you are not feeding your chickens everything listed above don’t worry! Just like you and I don’t have the perfect diet all the time your chickens won’t either and that is okay. This list is just a good diet to shoot for. When you feed your chickens well you can expect better results from them.

For example, if they don’t have enough food or water their egg production will go down. Or if they don’t have enough calcium their eggshells will be very thin.

I know it seems like a lot but over time you will figure it out! I have had chickens for years now and I am still figuring out the amount of food they need and the ratio of the different types of food.

I wanted to dive a little deeper into each item and explain why its good and a little about it.

1. Poultry Pellets

This will the majority of your chicken’s diet. A poultry pellet has most of the nutrients your chickens will need to lay eggs. They will get vitamins and minerals in the other things you give them but it is sometimes hard to get enough of the things they need in food scraps or clippings. A poultry pellet will guarantee the chicken gets what it needs.

2. Grains and Corn

Just like us, Chickens need a balanced diet. Grains and corn will not provide much protein but will provide your chickens with fiber which will turn into energy.

3. Table Scraps

I feel like table scraps for chickens is always such a big deal. You will read these lists of things you can feed them and things you can’t. Well, guess what? Even though chickens act pretty dumb sometimes they know what they can or cannot eat. I Have literally fed my chickens any and all table scraps and they have been perfectly fine. If it is something they can’t eat they won’t! It is that simple.

I Love feeding my chickens table scraps because I don’t feel like I am ever wasting anything! It is the best form of recycling. They get are scraps and give us fresh eggs. They also get a wider variety in their diet when you give them table scraps.

4. Grass Clippings & weeds

I would love to let my chickens totally free range but I can’t do that because they get into my neighbor’s flowers. But I make sure they whenever I weed I throw my weeds to them and my grass clippings. They love weeds and all the bugs they find in the weeds and clippings.

Grass clippings and weeds will help your chickens lay very “rich” eggs! And again how cool is it that you can take your “waste” and turn it into food!

And there are some weeds that chickens should not have but you really don’t need to worry about it because they know that and will not eat the things that are bad for them.

5. Calcium supplement

So don’t freak out! I am not going to suggest that you go and buy vitamins and supplements for your chickens. I mean you can do this but why would you when you can get it for free?

Again, I am going to share with you how you can “recycle” and get your own calcium supplement for your chickens. All you can to do it save your eggshells and ground them into a powder and put them back in their chicken feed. Sounds crazy but it works!

Now you might not need to do this but if you notice that your chicken’s eggshells are thin that is an indication that they could use some calcium in their diet.

Treats

The items I have listed above are great for a good balanced diet. But what about if you want to give your chickens a treat? I mean they do provide you with farm fresh eggs! A great little reward for you chickens would be…

1. Cabbage
2. Oatmeal
3. Watermelon
4. pumpkins

Chicken Feed Q & A

Now that we have the basics covered I want to take a second to go over a few more commonly asked questions about feeding chickens.

Can you feed chickens chicken scraps?

I already went over this question a little bit but I will expound on it a little more.

As I said from my experience and from things I have read table scraps are safe for your chickens. They are pretty good for the most part at staying away from things they should not have.

If you are super worried about giving them things that they should not have here is a small list you should stay away from feeding your chickens.

1. Chocolate (But let’s be real…who has leftover chocolate?)
2. Green potatoes or green tomatoes.
3. Raw or dry beans

Can Table scraps be a chicken’s full diet?

I kind of already answered this question as well but let’s go over it again. Yes, it is possible for your chickens to “survive” from just table scraps but it is not the best diet for them. They need the fiber and protein from the pellets and the grains Etc.

My chickens have gone with just scraps before when I ran out of food but I do my best to give them a balanced diet. That leads to the next question…

What if you feed them wrong?

From what I have found chickens are pretty hearty little things! They can live on just about anything. I have gone days without feeding them much and they survived just fine. So if you mess up the ratio and don’t feed them “right” you will be fine!

What I have shared with you is what you are shooting for. If you don’t perfect your chicken food right away it is not a huge deal. Just know that if you are not feeding them the right things your egg production might suffer.

But you will just keep trying different ratios until you find what works for you. Remember that chickens are animals they don’t need much to survive but if you are wanting them to work for you (i.e. give you eggs you might have to take a little better care of them)

What can chickens eat list/not eat

How many times a day should I feed my chickens?

Well, the nice things about chickens are that they won’t “gorge” themselves. They eat until they are full and then move on. So really you can feed them as much as you want and they will kinda let you know how much they need. This will also depend on how many chickens you have.

Before I was using a small feeder and would have to refill it all the time. But now I have these awesome chicken feeder that will feed my 21 chickens and I only have to fill it up once a week! And it cost like nothing to make! I will show you my feeder and waterer! They are both life-savers!

Chicken feeder

My husband and I have tried many different things to feed our chickens. It does not seem like a chicken feeder would be that big of a deal but it really is. If you get to small of a feeder you will have to refill it all the time. If you get an open style feeder the chickens will tip it over and poop in the food. And so on. We have finally found one that works extremely well! And the best part about this feeder is that you can build it yourself with just 2 items.

Here is a picture of our chicken feeder

All you need to build this feeder is

• Rubbermaid container
• PVC

Supplies

• Sharpie
• Drywall Saw

You can use one Rubbermaid container but if you layer them it will be stronger. I just cleaned out my basement and found some Rubbermaid containers down there. So that worked out well.

As far as the PVC goes you can just buy a 4″ PVC pipe and cut it down. Or you can buy the Pvc pieces that are curved like we did. Our feeder has a lot of feeding holes but you really don’t need that many. The amount of feeding holes will depend on how many chickens you have.

Once you have your supplies you will need to draw on the Rubbermaid containers where you want your PVC pipe to go. Once you figure out where you want your feeders you will take a drywall saw and cut them out.

After this step, you will put your cut PVC pipe pieces into the hole.

The inside will look like this.

Place your lid on and you have your chicken feeder!

Chicken Waterer

So I know this article is about what to feed chickens but my husband came up with a great way to water the chickens so I just have to share that real fast.

Here is what our chicken waterer looks like.

Here is how my husband built it…

It is basically the same as the chicken feeder.

1. Get your container
2. Buy the little water pieces here
3. Cut out holes
4. place lid on top

What to feed chickens to lay eggs?

Another issue I have had is my chickens not laying eggs. Usually, if you are feeding your chickens the diet we talked about your chickens should lay pretty well. If your chickens are not laying you might have other issues.

Your chickens might not be laying because it is too cold or they are molting etc. But again this article is about feeding chickens so I won’t go into those topics right now.

If you are feeding your chickens a balanced diet of…

1. Poultry Pellets
2. Grains & Corn
3. Table Scraps
4. Grass Clippings & Weeds
5. Calcium Supplement

And still, feel like they need something more I would try one of the following ideas.

• Bugs and Worms

I mentioned this already but chickens love bugs! You can purchase mealworms but that can get expensive. If you have little kids have them look for worms and throw them to the chickens! They will love it.

• Fruit

If you have some extra fruit that is on the verge of going bad to go ahead and give it to your chickens. This is a special treat for them but might also encourage them to lay some extra eggs.

• Eggshells or oyster shells

You can Recycle your eggshells and give them back to the chickens and this will help with your egg production as well. But if you are not getting any eggs you don’t have any eggshells right? If this is the case for you head up to your local farm store and pick up some oyster shells.

How to naturally feed your chickens

If you are like me you want to feed your chickens as naturally as possible. At first, I hardly bought any chicken feed because I wanted them to just eat scraps. And I will say that if you are really into it you can do mostly scraps but you have to have scraps with a wide verity in it to make sure your chickens are getting there grains and corn and proper nutrients.

This is kind of hard to answer because what “natural” means to me and what “natural” means to you might be two different things. I Feel that the list I talked about it pretty natural. Here is the list again for reference.

1. Poultry Pellets
2. Grains & Corn
3. Table Scraps
4. Grass Clippings & Weeds
5. Calcium Supplement

Grower feed for chickens

So far we have been talking mostly about layer chickens. But what about meat birds? We can’t forget about them!

A mistake I made with meat birds is trying to feed them on just grass and food scraps. This, unfortunately, did not work because with meat birds you need them to get nice and fat! So I would recommend getting a good grower feed. If you click on the picture below it will send you to amazon for some good grower feed.

What to feed chickens if you are out of food?

I run out of food more often then I would like to admit thankfully the store I get our chicken food is close. But I know for some of you its not as easy to get food. So what do you do until you can replenish your chicken food? Well, get your kids to work! If you don’t have kids I guess you will have to do it! This is pretty much a repeat from the above list but a few creative ways to get the food.

• Grass clippings

Mow the yard and rake up the clippings!

• Food scraps

Clean out the fridge and dump all the food that is about to be bad to the chickens. Do the same thing with the pantry and freezer.

• Worms and bugs

I just talked about this one but have your kids go hunting for bugs and worms. If you have little kids they will think this is so much fun! My kids are always wanting to help with the chickens and this is a great way for them to help.

• Weeds

Ya know that flower bed that is in dire need of a good weed? GO weed it and give the weeds to the chickens. I did that this summer and was so embarrassed at how many weeds I had. But again I love recycling and it worked out great! The chickens munched on it for a few days!

• Weed whip

This is pretty much the same thing. But get your weed whipping done and give the chickens what was weed whipped! I have done this a number of times as well!

• Free Range

This might not work for everyone. But if you are able to free-range your chickens this is a way that they can get the food they need as well.

Conclusion

Who knew there was so much to talk about when it came to feeding chickens! When I first got chickens I just assumed you bought chicken feed and you were done. I had no idea what a balanced chicken diet looked like.

I now know that for my chickens to have a balanced diet they need the following…

1. Poultry Pellets
2. Grains & Corn
3. Table Scraps
4. Grass Clippings & Weeds
5. Calcium Supplement

As always I hope this was helpful to you and if it was you might be interested in these other posts.

But what exactly is free ranging?

The dictionary definition of free ranging is  (livestock, especially poultry) kept in natural conditions, with freedom of movement.Typically when we think of free ranging we think that the animal has complete freedom. But that is not always the case if you go by the definition. With some animals you can let them have complete freedom and they will stick around. But like I mentioned above Goats will get pretty far away. And they are pretty destructive. But “free ranging” has so many benefits…Lets take a second to look at a few of them.

Free ranging benefits

1.Affordability 

A goats diet consist of mostly hay, grass, pasture etc. So if your goat is not free ranged you will end up spending a lot of money to keep enough food on hand. And if you are a homesteader that is trying to save money like most of us You won’t want to spend unnecessary money on feed.

2.Weed Eating

I personally only like to have animals on my homestead that do something for me or produce food. If your goat free ranges if can be your mower/weed eater. Use one of my methods below to move your goat around to clean up your land. (keep reading for all the things a goat will eat up for you)

3.Health 

If you are using your goat for meat or milk you want a healthy goat. So if you are letting your goat free range you will get the healthiest goat possible. Now You are probably confused because I just got done telling you that you can’t free range your goat. But I said you can’t free range your goat in the typical complete freedom way. BUT do not worry there are ways your goat can still get all of the benefits of free ranging but not have total freedom…

Non traditional “Free Range” methods

As I mentioned above you can still let your goat “free range”. Here are a few ways.

1.The first way to let your goat “free range” is to tie your goat up.

There are a number of ways you can do this. One way is to tie your goat to a stake and then move the stake around the area you want the goat to be. You can also tie your goat to a cinder block and once the goat gets an area eaten down move him to the next area. Or if you live in a wooded area just tie him to a tree. With any of these methods just make sure your rope is long enough for the goat to get a decent amount of area. I would say to cut your rope at least 20 feet. You want it long enough for the goat to get to the grass but not to long that he gets tangled up in it.

2. The second way would be to get temporary fencing.

This way you can have your goat in an area for a few days. ( Or more depending how big the area is) And once he “mows” down that area you can move the fence and give him fresh grass, Bugs Etc.

3. The third way would be the closest to actual free range, which would be using dogs.

If you happen to have herding dogs you can let your goats free range and the dogs should keep them close. The dogs that do the best with this would be blue heelers. I know its a long shot that you would have a herding dog but I figured I would throw the option out there. With this option I would experiment before you just assume it will work. Make sure you are around and watch how the dogs do with the goats.