Re: Raising ducks
Derek, get a heat lamp or one of those lights you can clip on to something and put it above them to keep them warm, will probably work better than a heating pad; that's what we do at least. If you haven't already, get some chick starter food. It'll say chick but baby ducks can eat it also. Our ducks we raised can't really fly that well anyway. I think because they are domestic andn ot wild, all they can do is maybe run and get up a foot in the air for a second, that's about it, but trimming the primary feathers works fine. Raising the ducks as babies, you shouldn't have to worry about them leaving home. Once you get them out on the pond, You could build a small shed/doghouse type thing for them to go in or even have a small fence around it to keep them in at night. I'm not sure if you have foxes/coyotes around but we do so we keep them in a pen at night. We don't have a pond so we have a small plastic kiddie pool for them. Once they get a little bigger so they don't drown, you can give them a dishpan of water in their cage/small pen to go in. Ducks need water to help them get their food down. I hope this helps. Feel free to pm me with any questions. We had 6 ducks and they layed eggs, hatched them, and then we butchered the youngins. We were back to 4 females and 2 males but about 1.5 weeks ago a fox took a chicken and a female and 2 male ducks so all we have are 3 females. Good luck!