I decided to write a post on water fowl because it was the next step in our homesteading adventures. We already had a flock of chickens and wanted to add some ducks and geese to our flock. I will start the article on ducks and add another post about geese.
With Easter rolling around, this is a great time to get free or cheap ducks and chicks from others who don't quite know what to do with them! You can also consider adoption via sites like petfinder.com, Craigslist.org. If you come up empty, most feed stores still sell them this time of year.
Before you even start, make sure zoning allows you to have ducks on your property. We live on agricultural property, so this isn't an issue.
Why ducks and/geese? From my experience, ducks will lay regularly all year round. Only certain chicken breeds (like the Rhode Island Reds), on the other hand, will lay fairly well in the winter.
Ducks and geese are very hardy and do quite well exposed even in our harsh winter. They eat a lot less than chickens and grow much more quickly. If you're breeding them for meat purposes, Geese would be the best bang for your buck in terms of food consumption vs meat production.
Ducks also grow more quickly than chickens. The Peking duck makes a good meat bird.
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| Duck Cheney, our resident douche-y drake |
EGGS
Duck eggs are about 1.5 to 2 times the size of an average chicken egg. The shell is thicker and the egg is higher in fat and cholesterol. They taste a lot richer than chicken eggs and have a slightly different texture to them. I am not able to taste the difference chicken and duck when eggs are beaten or scrambled. Duck eggs are well known to be great for baking and for making meringues.
I also use them for making my 'giam neng' (salted duck eggs). Whilst you can use chicken eggs, duck eggs offer their own texture and flavor that's not replicated by salting chicken eggs.
TELLING MALES APART FROM FEMALES
Of course, if you know how to sex them, this is not a problem. If you don't, there are other physical characteristics you can look out for: drakes have a curl on the tail whereas females do not. Another obvious difference is that drakes do not have a voice - they do not quack. Instead, they let out a very rasp-y sounding 'quack'.
In my experience, drakes do not exhibit the same male strut of a gander or a rooster.
CARING FOR YOUR DUCKS
We've found that we can easily put our ducklings together with chicks in a storage tote without any problems. Be sure to have a heat lamp available if you live in a colder area.
Be sure to provide clean food and water for all the creatures. Ducks and geese should also have a deep enough water source where they can dip their heads into daily.
Duck poop is wet and nasty so you'll need to change the bedding more frequently. They are also a lot more messy because they splash water around a lot. You'll also need to prepare to move them sooner than chicks because they grow more quickly.
While ducks are very hardy, they will still need some kind of dry shelter from both the heat and the cold. Since temperatures very rarely go above 95F where we live, the heat factor isn't really an issue for us. We simply allow them to live in the coop with the chickens (side note: do NOT house turkeys in your chicken coop. They are susceptible to diseases from chickens that chickens are immune to). While their bodies are equipped for the cold and wet, remember that their feet are just skin, making them vulnerable to the cold and injury - hence the need for a good dry place.
Again, be sure to have water that's deep enough for the ducks to dip their heads into. In summer, we have a kiddy pool for them, and in winter, we just use 3 or 5 gallon buckets of water. You can get them new from Walmart (usually under $2 each) or free from your supermarket bakery (they use them for storing frosting. The only caveat is that you have to wash out the frosting yourself - you'll never look at frosting the same way again!)
FEEDING
Ducks are omnivorous and like chickens, will eat almost anything. Be sure to use a higher protein feed for the ducks (meat bird will work but layer feed is insufficient protein). You can also opt to use an "all-flock" feed which is what we now use.
A FINAL WORD
Unless you manage to get your duck to imprint on you, ducks are no where as cool or as entertaining as chickens. If you have a nice pond and are thinking of adding ducks, do NOT do so. the ducks will tear and muck it up.
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