What to feed a duckling? Helpful Hints

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

If you decide to breed ducks, then the first thing you need to figure out is in what conditions to keep and what to feed the duckling.

Conditions for keeping chicks

If there is no hen, the rooms for the newly hatched chicks must be heated, with enough air and light. The temperature in the rooms should be constant and regulated only depending on the age of the kids. Small shavings are used as bedding, which are covered with corrugated cardboard in the first few days. They can be released for walking a few days after birth.

How and what to feed a duckling. Ground Rules

Ducklings grow very fast, unlike other poultry. Just a few months, and now a recently hatched chick has become like an adult. The thing is that the food for these birds contains a lot of nutrients, and, in addition, these birds eat quite a lot and often. You just need to make their diet right. The feed must necessarily contain nitrogenous and mineral substances, as well as vitamins.

What to feed newborn ducklings?

Requiredthe condition for proper nutrition of babies is crumbly food. Five days after the babies have hatched, they should be given a moistened mixture of eggs, which must be finely chopped, grain flour, necessarily sifted, cottage cheese and finely chopped greens. They are fed on special boards that need to be washed and dried daily. Also, in addition to water, you need to use yogurt. It is poured into drinkers. Access to the drinking bowls is limited so that the cubs have the opportunity to dip only their beak into it and cannot climb there entirely. After a few days, more curdled milk should be added to the feed mixture and the proportion of greens should be gradually increased. Also, river sand must be poured into a separate feeder. If conditions permit, the chicks are given nettles and herbs. They also use water bodies where they can always find the right food.

In such conditions, a person only needs to feed his pets. Many poultry farmers have different answers to the question "what to feed a duckling?" Everyone acts differently. Some read various literature, others draw conclusions based on many years of experience. Accordingly, the diet of small chicks is completely different. One experienced poultry farmer, when asked "what to feed the hatched ducklings," answered that in the first few weeks they should be given boiled grated carrots and steamed corn grits. In this case, everything must be mixed very carefully. Dandelions, nettles and green onions are used as greens. It is very interesting that it is the nettle that has a stronginfluence on the growth of ducklings. The more it is, the faster they grow. Grown up chicks can be fed with vegetables: beets, zucchini, fodder cabbage. Definitely raw and mixed with bran.

You need to decide what to feed the duckling in advance, even before you have it. If the chicks grow quite quickly, this indicates proper nutrition and good he alth of the birds.