What We Learned With Our First Ducklings
We recently hit the 100-day mark with our ducks. They are easily the most hilarious additions to the homestead.
This is our first year homesteading and our first time ever having ducks, so this is a summary of what we learned in the first 100 days…
Rapid Growth & Niacin
The ducklings grew SO much faster than the chicks. It is shocking how fast a tiny baby turns into a 5-pound bird. By week 4, they were barely recognizable as the cotton balls we brought home. The biggest health hurdle having ducks is making sure they get enough niacin. A natural way to do this is nutritional yeast, which we use in our smoothies. Standard chick starter isn't enough; Use duck feed!! Or, adding nutritional yeast to their feed ensures their heavy bodies had the leg strength to keep up.
The Smell is Real
Ducklings stink way more than chicks. Because their poop is mostly liquid, the ammonia levels in a brooder can get overwhelming fast. Even with regular bedding changes, that ammonia is powerful. I quickly learned that you have to stay ahead of the odor or it will take over your entire house.
Pro-Tip: The "Double Brooder" System
The best move we made was setting up 2 separate brooder areas. Since ducks are messy and require frequent deep-cleans, having an "A" and "B" setup is a headache saver.
The Rotation: While the ducks are hanging out in Brooder A, you can fully scrub, dry, and re-bed Brooder B.
The Stress-Free Swap: Instead of trying to clean around panicked, wet birds, you just scoop them up, move them to the fresh box, and take your time cleaning out the old one. This rotation keeps the smell down and the ducks much happier.
Mastering Water Containment
Ducks don’t just drink water; they celebrate it. Within five minutes of a clean brooder, a standard waterer will usually result in a soaked floor with standing water.
The Solution: We had to get creative with containment trays. We cut into a storage tote and set the waterer and feeder into that, so the ducklings could waddle in and out but the lip prevented all of the water from getting all into the bedding. They still managed to get the shavings wet, but there weren’t any puddles after we tried this.
Depth Matters: They need enough depth to dunk their heads, but you have to manage the "splash zone" unless you want to change the bedding three times a day. So if you try what we did, leave a 3” or so lip. Also, give them time in the sink or a kiddie pool and they won’t be nearly as messy all day long in the brooder.
Despite the smell and the constant cleaning, ducks were totally were giving up the living room for, haha. We definitely prefer the secondary method of rearing that we tried with the last 4 ducks we added - We just put them out with the grown ducks. They’ve done fantastic and are now one full month old and almost as large as the older ducks. Now that we know how well this works, we will just wait for the weather to be right and either let the ducks brood their own, or we will get ducklings and put them with the others, instead of trying to raise them indoors the first 6 weeks.