We will be picking up our little ducklings shortly, hopefully tomorrow or Sunday. The hatch date is supposed to be today!!! We'll see how many the mom hatches out. I hope that there are quite a few. I have been doing a lot of reading. I would like to get some advice from the experienced people here to see what preferences among you all are.
What I would like to know is if anyone makes their own feed here for ducklings? Recipes? I have found a few and they seem to be similar. We would just prefer to keep them away from soy, which I am thinking is in most if not all commercial feeds. We are just not lovers of soy...for us or any of our livestock.
Also, what are your preferences for bedding and lighting. I read that a ceramic light is better than infrared. We don't have ceramic, only the red bulb.
I read that they need to be fed 5x/day for the first while...not sure how long...then 3x /day until mature. We will let them free range once they are older, maybe 6 weeks old? Feeding once they are older should be pretty straight forward, we will treat them the same as the other ducks feed wise, and they are strong and healthy.
We have muscovies and our dog and cat seem to leave them alone. In fact, our dog takes great pride in protecting all of our (her) livestock, day and night, and the cat knows that! She even needs to be careful around here.
I read that alfalfa and clover (before bloom) increases fertility. Anyone find that to be true?
Is there anything else that I should know to add to my collection of information? I know more than I have posted here, like no swimming until a certain age, safety with bulbs, etc. It would just make a monster post to put it all down. I am just wanting to know what everyone does on here.
We picked up our muscovies when they were 3 weeks old, and they did just fine with what we did. What I am concerned about is the first 3 weeks, really. We can handle everything past that age.
What I would like to know is if anyone makes their own feed here for ducklings? Recipes? I have found a few and they seem to be similar. We would just prefer to keep them away from soy, which I am thinking is in most if not all commercial feeds. We are just not lovers of soy...for us or any of our livestock.
Also, what are your preferences for bedding and lighting. I read that a ceramic light is better than infrared. We don't have ceramic, only the red bulb.
I read that they need to be fed 5x/day for the first while...not sure how long...then 3x /day until mature. We will let them free range once they are older, maybe 6 weeks old? Feeding once they are older should be pretty straight forward, we will treat them the same as the other ducks feed wise, and they are strong and healthy.
We have muscovies and our dog and cat seem to leave them alone. In fact, our dog takes great pride in protecting all of our (her) livestock, day and night, and the cat knows that! She even needs to be careful around here.
I read that alfalfa and clover (before bloom) increases fertility. Anyone find that to be true?
Is there anything else that I should know to add to my collection of information? I know more than I have posted here, like no swimming until a certain age, safety with bulbs, etc. It would just make a monster post to put it all down. I am just wanting to know what everyone does on here.
We picked up our muscovies when they were 3 weeks old, and they did just fine with what we did. What I am concerned about is the first 3 weeks, really. We can handle everything past that age.
Last edited by niglefritz on Fri Apr 20, 2012 3:08 pm; edited 1 time in total