Raising Ducks
Basics
Duckling diary
Management
Housing
Eggs
Links/Resources
Movies
and please note:
Duck management: feeding
The ducks eat Mazuri waterfowl breeder formula. We feed them from two plastic dog bowls, which we refill morning and evening as necessary. We've found it simplest to let them eat as much as they want; they do well regulating their own feeding. How much they eat depends on the time of year: they eat more in colder weather to stay warm and to make up for the lack of bugs and fresh grass. At present, in winter, they go through a 50-lb. bag of food (which costs us $24) in about four weeks. That's about twelve cups of food a day.
We supplement their "duck chow" with kitchen and garden scraps.
They particularly like lettuce and other tender greens, but they also
enjoy leftover grits, other whole grains, and most vegetables that are
relatively tender and mild. We chop them up into manageable pieces before
feeding (a food processor is helpful for larger quantities).
The produce staff of our co-op grocery store
(Weaver Street Market,
in Carrboro, N.C.) lets us scavenge from their leftovers for suitable
duck food. Trimmings, slightly wilted leaves, and anything slightly past
its prime goes into big garbage bins in the back room; while it can't
be sold, it's perfectly healthy food, and the store is happy to let us
have a few grocery bags full of greens each week.
And, of course, the ducks also eat whatever they find in the yard — bugs, grass, and (when we aren't looking) parsley from the herb garden.
For water we use two poultry waterers, a five-gallon waterer in their daytime grazing pen and a two-gallon waterer in their night pen. These waterers are designed for chickens, though, and we've found that the ducks need deeper water than the shallow trays provide to keep their bills clean. Their swimming pool fills this need, but if for some reason we have to keep them in their night pen during the day, we give them a gallon bucket of water.
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