Q: What should ducklings eat?
A: Ducklings must have enough proteins and vitamins. We have risked loosing our Pio Pis due to lack of suitably rich food (combined with inadequate temperatures, see further). The standard commercial fodder, in our experience, has to be integrated with mineral salts and vitamins, both available in pet shops, to add to their drinking water. Our veterinarian suggested also a few types of protein rich human food, of course to be crumbled and cut into small pieces: e.g. boiled eggs, cheese, baby food.
Q: What can ducks eat?
A: Anything. At least, anything YOU can eat, and then something else, like snails, slugs, grasshoppers, crickets, and other assorted insects! Ducks do have individual preferences, but we found that both of them appreciated tomatoes as the highest ranking delicacy, maybe followed by snails, better if offered by us (!) instead of painstakingly searched in a big lawn! We have always supplied them with a good amount of commercial duck fodder, but they were constantly interested in experimenting: among others, they showed a taste for spaghetti or pasta, tortellini, “fusilli alla panna e piselli”, Parmesan cheese, ham, fruit (except oranges), cake….Lettuce and chicory, and many different types of ornamental plants, both water-plants and normal garden flowers, better if red ;-).... BUT WARNING: some gentle readers wrote me that a lot of ornamental plants are poisonous to ducks! Finally, you may wish to mix to their fodder some very finely minced eggshells, to provide calcium.
I think it goes almost without saying that a relatively small garden can already provide a part of the nourishment to your ducks, in the form of insects and the like. They will also graze the grass; I never had to cut the lawn in the part of garden where Clotildone and Pio Pis lived (I should say“owned“!).
Q: How to take care of ducklings in their first weeks of life?
A: The main problem is to avoid low temperatures. They should not go outside, at least for the first 4 weeks! In the wild, their mother duck would warm them, taking them under her wings, and you have to provide something to “imitate” this. Generally a cardboard box with fresh water to drink and straw at the bottom (to be changed VERY frequently), and an infrared lamp hanging over it can be OK. In order to understand if the temperature is OK, look at them: if they collect themselves in a small circle under the lamp, it is too cold; lower the lamp. If they leave an empty space under the lamp, it means it is too near to the ground: that is too hot. As a rule of thumb, I have found the following temperatures in a booklet: 1st week, 35 °C; 2nd week, 32 °C; 3rd week, 28 °C; 4th week, 25 °C. From the fifth week on, they can (and should!) graze outside, during the day: bring them back during the night.
Also, be careful to avoid bathing during the first weeks: do not look at our photographs: that was an error! They have no protective grease when they are so young. You will have the problem to avoid that your ducklings use the drinking water for bathing!
Q: Can they live outside in winter? Will it be too cold?
A: I have read that ducks are pretty healthy animals. We had built a duck house for them, with insulated walls, and for some months have tried to convince them that it was better, at the evening, to go inside. Fodder was always offered only inside their shelter, and they came in and out freely: I say this to explain that this was not an unfamiliar place for them. But when free to do so, even in the coldest days of winter, and snow (that by us can mean about–5 °C), they always preferred to come out and eventually shelter under a bush.
Nevertheless, we lost Pio Pis due to the winter cold. But then, she was always the weaker of the two, and I am not sure the cold was the real reason. Anyway try to avoid sudden changes in temperature: they can cause pneumonia.
Q: Will they fly (or walk) away, when free to do so?
A: This is difficult for me to say, because our ducks always lived in a closed garden, where they could not escape. Basically my impression is that when they are young, it is better to limit their wanderings, but when adults, they will return to the place where they receive food and affection. Concerning the flying away, ducks do fly. In fact we had to clip the feathers at the tip of the wings (this does absolutely no harm or pain, it is like clipping your nails), to avoid that they invaded the part of garden that we had not “surrendered” to them, including the ornamental pond. As a matter of fact, though, they flew over the low fence that separated“our” garden from“theirs” only occasionally, and NEVER flew over the higher fence that delimited the garden. This partially answers the original question.
Q: How long do they live?
A: I think it depends on the race, and our experience has not been long enough. Certainly the death of Pio Pis after just 2 years has to be considered abnormal, and surely due to illness. A kind reader has written me that the mean life expectancy is from 6 to 12 years, and even 16 in exceptional cases.
Q: How can duck become very tame and friendly?
A: Despite the beautiful photographs that you have seen, we were not satisfied with the tameness of our ducks. In fact they felt for us a mix of love and fear, and always gravitate between 1m and 30 cm from our feet, never allowing us to touch them without resenting it. Nevertheless, we were able to teach them some tricks, like jumping to reach a tomato, or running behind us when encouraged. It was fun.
But I know where our error was: we did not “imprint” our ducks when they were young enough. “The” book about this subject is Konrad Lorenz “King Salomon Ring”, and I advise everyone interested in animals to read it. But the main idea is that if you want your ducks to climb your legs, or to sit on your shoulders, and so on, you have to be the first thing they see when they come out of the eggs: and then you will be their mom! But this forces you to bring them with you wherever you go and whatever you do during the first weeks of their live!. If you cannot do this, at least I would suggest, try to buy them very young, and touch, and manipulate them as much as possible when they are from 1 to 4 weeks of age: do not leave them alone, take them in your hands, speak to them, let them identify human beings, and you in particular, as their“normal” counterparts.
Q: What type are your ducks? What type would you advise?
A: We had Pekin ducks: this is a breed that was developed by the farmers for meat and eggs, and they are big and generally not able to sit on their own eggs. I would advise mallards, both because they are prettier and smaller, and also because if you wish, you can let them care for their own“children”.
Q: How do you tell the male from the female?
A: The veterinarian said there was no way until the curl on the tail of the male developed. Of course for mallards there is no problem, due to their differently coloured feathers.
Q: How large should the garden be? And the shelter?
A: I think that if you want“happy” ducks you should supply ample space to them. We had defined a stripe of 20 m by 5 m for our two ducks. But probably also five could have lived well in the same space. Anyway two were already enough to prevent the grass of the lawn from growing in certain particularly“interesting” paths. For the shelter, I would suggest 0.5 m2 for each duck.
Q: What about eggs, and hatching?
A: Pio Pis laid an enormous amount of eggs, about one per day at peak time, and large eggs, also! She created a total of three nests, but was not able to sit constantly on them. The books say that this is normal for Pekin ducks, but actually we were disappointed. During the most successful attempt of sitting, we brought her food and water so near that she had no need to move. And she let us offer food to her, without leaving the nest! But then, much before the normal 28 days, she abandoned it. We are told that the farmers“force” ducks to sit using an overturned basket over them, with only a hole for the head… but it seems to me a bit too much for a pet!!!
Concerning hatching, having read that Pekin ducks are not good egg sitter, I collected a few freshly laid eggs, and built a small incubator. It did not work. Have a look at some of the links that I put at the bottom of our page; there are successful experiences in this sense.
Q: Are ducks noisy?
A: Yes. They can be noisy, for example they can begin to quack at 6 hours a.m., for no apparent reason. Generally this was not a big problem for us, it happened only a few times, and anyway never at night. The best strategy I can advise is to ignore them, if they quack at inappropriate times: if you go, and try to calm them, they will learn this and quack every time they want you to go to them, even at very early hours a.m.!
Q: Do they make dirty? Are they messy?
A: Yes. As a witty visitor rightly wrote in our guest book, if only ducks could wear diapers, they would make the perfect pets. Old newspapers can help if you want to have them inside your home. But basically they are garden animals, and if you have a lawn, the will fertilize it automatically.
Also, forget about sharing an ornamental pond between fishes, turtles, and ducks. They will eat every water plant that you could try to introduce, faster than you can replace them, and will soil the water in a matter of hours. Prepare a separate pond for the ducks, with easy means for emptying it and washing it with minimal effort.
Q: Where do I find further information about ducks?
A: The web is a wonderful source, and I have tried to collect a few selected links at the bottom of our “pet ducks page”: some of them are extremely informative. Due to the dynamic nature of the World Wide Web, though, a good search engine will sometimes give more extensive and up to date results.
And, do not forget the good old books! At the beginning of our experience we have learned a lot from a cheap, but invaluable booklet (unfortunately in Italian) dealing with home-made breeding of small animals, including ducks, geese, rabbits, and many others: I am sure something similar can be found in any good bookshop. A book that is mentioned in this extremely useful Duck Care Sheet is:
Raising Ducks & Geese by John M. Vivian
Story Publishing Bulletin A-18
Q: Is it fun to have pet ducks?
A: YES, it is, and sweet, and bitter, and very work-intensive, and… you have to try it to understand!