How and What To Feed Ducks!

Hi there, welcome to the Happy Chicken Coop YouTube channel. Thanks for joining me today. I'm going to be answering the question, what do ducks eat? And go through all the things that you need to know as far as what they can eat and what they cannot eat. Before I get into that, please be sure to like the video and subscribe to the YouTube channel. Also, be sure to subscribe to our website, thehappychickencoop.com. If you subscribe using the link in the description, you'll receive a free ebook on the 10 best egg-laying chicken breeds. All right, without further ado, let's get into it. So a slightly different focus today, ducks. What should ducks eat? How should you feed them? What treats can you give them? And all that stuff. As a small child, I can remember going to the riverside with my mom to feed the ducks. Those ducks used to make me laugh with their antics and the way they waddled. We used to feed them old bread, which is a big no-no nowadays, but back then we didn't know any different and the ducks didn't seem to mind either. So what do ducks eat in the wild? Wild ducks have a varied omnivorous diet. While we think of them mainly eating weeds, waterside plants, and dabbling through the mud, you may be surprised to find out some of the things they eat while dabbling in the lovely bottom of the ponds and streams. They're looking for things like crayfish, small shrimps, beetle larva, even small frogs, fish, and newts. They do eat a lot of plant-based materials like seeds, greens, weeds, water plants, and roots, grass, berries, and nuts when in season. Since their diet in the wild is unpredictable, they have evolved to eat a wide variety of things to maintain health all year round. Ducks are able to carry large fat reservoirs under that wonderful feather insulation which will see them through the short snaps of bad weather. They also reduce their exposure to the elements by finding sheltered spots to sit in and they have specialized blood flow to their legs and feet to prevent freezing. All right, now let's talk about feeding pet ducks one-on-one. Feeding ducks the right diet has a influence on how they grow and develop. Poor diet lacking nutrition will most certainly have a detrimental effect. There are a few feed manufacturers that put out feed specific for ducks. I was able to find one but it was very expensive. Instead, you can use chicken feed if you need to. Chicken feed, although similar, does not provide all the necessary nutrients for ducks so you may have to improvise and I'll touch on that in a little bit. So to keep it simple, here's what I'm going to tell you. For ducklings, they require 20 to 22% chick crumbles, non-medicated. You'll need to add one and a half tablespoons of brewer's yeast to each cup of feed. The crumbles need to be made into a wet mash consistency since it is easy for ducklings to choke on dried crumbles. Make sure your ducklings have access to water at least an hour before you feed them and make sure it's no deeper than a quarter inch. You should supervise ducks in water since they are not waterproof until around four weeks old and can easily drown in a small amount of water. Now, let's talk about what you should feed them in week three. Now, you should drop the protein content in the feed to 16 and 18%. Continue to add brewer's yeast. In week 20, this is where your ducks can now change over to pelleted chicken layer feed, 16%. They will no longer require the brewer's yeast. Something that ducks need is a lot of water. They need lots of water to drink. An adult duck can drink half a gallon each day. They also like to wash their faces in the water and of course paddling and swimming. When you have ducks, you can never have enough water. I've already told you exactly what they need to eat. Now, let me talk about how much to feed them. Now, the amount that you should feed your ducks is not dissimilar to chickens at stages zero to week four. They should be given a free choice in order to eat what they want. At four weeks through 20 weeks, they will consume roughly a quarter of a pound of feed per day. So, that is four ounces of feed per day. And at 20 weeks, they will be eating around 0.3 pounds of feed per day. So, if your birds are allowed to free range, they will gather much of their nutrition from the garden surrounding area. Whether or not you feed free choice or twice a day, it's up to you and what you think is best. Many folks feed twice a day, but we'll also have some treats available in case the ducks want a snack. Obviously, the amount your duck eats varies with the size of the duck. Little call ducks will eat considerably less than a Cayuga or Appleyard duck. Now, let's talk about some of the basic feed requirements. I've already talked about the feed that they need and how much to feed them, but now I'm going to cover all the bases as far as nutrition and what they need. At zero to two weeks, this is a time that ducklings require the highest protein content of their diet, 20 to 22%. There's lots of growth going on here. And weeks three to eight, the protein content should be cut back to 16% now to encourage growth at a reasonable speed. The growth rate should also start to slow down a little bit at this time. Some people keep them on 18% protein feed to increase the rate of growth, but a high protein diet can cause wing and leg deformities along with kidney and liver problems. Between nine to 20 weeks, as incredible as it may seem, ducks have reached somewhere between 70 to 90% of their growth by week nine. The protein content of the feed should be around 15%. Between weeks nine through 20, the growth rate slows. They replace their adolescent feathers with adult plumage and finally reach their sex maturity. Now is the time to separate the sexes if you want to. Now, as far as adult ducks go, feeding your ducks can be a bit confusing, so we'll divide the adults into three categories. The first one is a maintenance diet. This is for seasons when the ducks are not laying, like late fall and winter, the protein requirement can drop to 12 to 14%. As far as a layer diet, those eggs certainly deplete a girl's protein, 16% protein will do, but you can also use 18% for short spurts. Drake and non-layer diet, Drake and non-laying hens require the standard 14% for maintenance. As far as vitamin and minerals go, ducks requires the same vitamins and minerals that chicks do, but in slightly different quantities. They require calcium, phosphorus, and vitamin D. It's essential to the well-being of a duckling. Insufficient quantities can result in bone formation. This usually manifests as difficulty in walking, usually called rickets in severe cases. Niacin deficiency in ducklings can be very common if you feed chick starter to your ducks. Chick feed does not contain sufficient niacin for duck health, so you need to add some to the feed. This is very easy to do. Brewer's yeast powder can be added to either the feed or the water daily. Insufficient niacin leads to neurological problems, shaking, bowed legs, seizures, and eventually death if not corrected. Several changes in protein level may seem a bit finicky and not everyone sticks to the exact regimen, but if you want to raise healthy ducks, it's worth the time and effort. Buying a large bag of 20% crumbles will see you through the various changes if you're prepared to doctor the feed yourself. As an example, you have 20% protein feed, but want to give 15 to 16% protein feed, you can use three cups of 20% and one cup of rolled oats to mix in, and you have reduced your protein intake to around 15%. So what treats can I feed my ducks? Like most of our pets, ducks enjoy treats, but before I go into this list, you need to make sure that treats make up no more than 10% of their daily intake. So here are some treats. Cracked corn, it's a huge favorite. Grains like wheat and barley, uncooked oats, milo, you can feed them black oil, sunflower seeds, bird seed, chopped salad or greens, watercress. You can feed them mealworms and you can also feed them fresh fruits like grapes, cut them in half if you're going to feed them. Banana, I would probably feed them like mashed up. I don't know if I would just give them a chunk of a big banana slice. Apples without seeds, peaches, blueberries, and blackberries. As far as veggies go, make sure you chop them into small pieces. Sweet corn is a favorite. Hard boiled eggs and scrambled eggs. You should not feed them raw potato, spinach, citrus, or avocado. So let's get through some questions here as we wrap up. Can ducks eat bread? Ducks will eat stale bread, donuts, chips, crackers, and popcorn, but these things are very low in nutrition and can actually be bad for them. And when I say bad, I don't mean that like if you feed them some bread, they're not going to die. Fine. If you want to feed the ducks though and you really care and you want them to give them something healthy, you can give them bird seed, cracked corn, peas, and veggie trimmings, and just make sure you cut those veggie trimmings into small pieces or mealworms. So what do wild ducks eat in the winter? You may see them in areas where there's still running water at the edges of ponds and wetlands where the ice is not quite so thick. They will be probing for anything under the ice. If there's open water, they will be fishing for small fish or other snacks. Almost any green vegetation is eaten and any berries on the hedgerows. What is an angel wing? This is a problem simply caused by too much protein in the diet. It causes their feathers to stick out rather than lay flat. It can be severe enough to prevent them from flying at all. So to summarize, it's difficult to buy feed specifically for ducks with the little ingenuity you could though modify your chicken feed to suit them. It really isn't difficult to do and won't take up much time at all. In fact, you will be soon an expert at it. Ducks are delightful creatures, sure to bring a smile to your face every day. There are also a tremendous benefit in the garden where they love nothing better to chow down on slugs, snails, and bugs. They will happily patrol the lawn on pest control duty, looking for tasty snacks before retreating to the pond for some boisterous paddling and bathing time. So that's going to do it for us here at the Happy Chicken Coop. Thanks for joining us today. If you find our content interesting, if you learned something new, please be sure to like the video and subscribe to the channel. Be also sure to subscribe to the website. With that, I hope you have a great day and we'll talk to you soon.