# Ducks are disgusting!



## GBov (May 4, 2008)

Was given two ducklings - Pekin and an Indian Runner - and I was like :bouncy::bouncy::bouncy: with my new babies.

They are the nastiest, dirtiest, stinkyest things that I have EVER tried to raise!

Cant wait for them to grow big enough to eat cause I am already sick of cleaning up after them and they are only 8 days old lol.


----------



## mommathea (May 27, 2009)

That's why I sold my ducklings after 2wks. I couldn't take it any more. Maybe I'll get them again when I can brood them outside.


----------



## BackfourtyMI. (Sep 3, 2007)

We Love our ducks but when they are inside they are really smelly & messy! I try to hatch mine out or buy ducklings when it's warm enough that I can transfer them to the garage soon after with a heat lamp until they are big enough to go outside.

They are a lot of fun if you can get past the brooding stage. If you have a heated garage put them in a big plastic tote with a heat lamp, make sure the space is big enough they can get away from the light especially since your in Florida & already a lot warmer than we are here.


----------



## jennigrey (Jan 27, 2005)

Haha, welcome to baby ducks!

If you can put their water up on something with a grate on top, that helps a lot. Don't use wood shavings with them - they sour quickly. Keep the food and water as far away from each other as possible.

Hang in there!


----------



## lilachill (Apr 2, 2006)

Disgusting, YES, but delicious.
To keep the mess down I have three ways to keep the "wet" mess under control. When they are small their watered sits on a mesh cake rack on a rimmed cookie sheet. After that we switch to putting the waterer on a rack set in a large feed bowl. Due to the slope of bowl the rack sits a few inches above the bottom of the bowl to catch the splash. Our rack is actual old grill racks cable tied together so that they are perpendicular to each other. I am sure a large enough cake rack (with grid configuration not just the parallel wires) would fit on the feed pan. 
Next the feed pan/wire mesh watered moves to a pen in the barn. The floor of the pen is a 1/2" x1" welded wire floor on a 1x 4" frame. I sprinkle the floor with lime and sawdust to keep down the smell. I have had to remove the wire topped frames and shovel out the mess more than I thought would be necessary but it does a good job.After feathering they move into outdoor moveable pens that are moved daily.


----------



## GrannyCarol (Mar 23, 2005)

What???!!! You don't find baby ducklings adorable in all their messy, wet, smelly selves??? 

I do try to brood later in the spring, by a week old, they can move into my small insulated shed with a heat lamp, where they have a lot of room and the mess is minimal.


----------



## SmokeEater2 (Jan 11, 2010)

Yup! The only thing I've found that is nastier and smellier than baby ducks is baby geese. :yuck:


----------



## Elsbet (Apr 2, 2009)

We change their papers in their box FREQUENTLY. Like, several times a day. I just figure, it's good compost. They don't bother me, I love how funny they are. We fill up a dishpan of water and let them paddle around from time to time, too- not too deep because without their mama they don't have that oil in their feathers that keeps them afloat. But it helps get the nasty smell out of their fluff. We love keeping ducklings. I'm getting some more this Saturday.


----------



## jen74145 (Oct 31, 2006)

Why yes, yes they are.

I will never again raise ducklings. I will buy adult ducks and let them raise their own heathen offspring.


----------



## GrannyCarol (Mar 23, 2005)

I can't help myself, I love hatching duck eggs. I even love the fuzzy stinky babies! The adolescent gangly monsters are adorable too. What can I say?


----------



## Caprice Acres (Mar 6, 2005)

I too love the fuzzy stinky things. Though this year, I'm going to see what we can do about putting our mesh-floor brooders outside in a tarp house or something. I don't like them in my barn. 

I've got 63 duck, 17 goose eggs in the 'bator.


----------



## GBov (May 4, 2008)

They are outside now *happy dance* but how long do they need heat for? They are getting BIG but they have no feathers, just teh down they came with.

They are soooooooo different to chickens and quail!

And icky but I think I mentioned that already lol.


----------



## Falls-Acre (May 13, 2009)

This is why I raise ducklings on wire floored cages all by themselves. They are the nastiest creature ever created, and they don't improve with maturity! Unless they are going on a large pond that won't care how messy they are there, I won't have them again. I think my grandmother keeps her ducks' water on a concrete pad to try and help cut down on the filth. Still, yuck! And they will foul any water source they can get to within a matter of hours.


----------



## thaiblue12 (Feb 14, 2007)

I totally agree, eww!! I tried so many different ways to keep the brooder clean and it never really worked. I was so happy when they went outside until I realized they made a mess in everyone's water, made a huge muddy mess in their pen when I tried to keep them in there to reduce the muddy mouth dirt water. 
So then they use to scream at me everytime I came out the side door. So the morning when I slid in their muck, my shoe came off and I stepped in it, I said Enough!! I sold the entire flock of 8 egg laying females a few years ago and was not sorry. 
Yet now my neighbor's two ducks seem to think they need to live here :doh:


----------



## LFRJ (Dec 1, 2006)

good luck waiting for that runner to get big enough to eat. Probably more meat on a gopher!


----------



## GBov (May 4, 2008)

LFRJ said:


> good luck waiting for that runner to get big enough to eat. Probably more meat on a gopher!


If it has more meat than a quail, it will be a good DEAD duck lol.

Actually, I might sell them both at the local farm swap. Anything I get will be a bonus and I might use the money to go buy a couple of adult mosgovies (sp?). They look nice and meaty!


----------



## edcopp (Oct 9, 2004)

Ducks are cool.


----------



## LFRJ (Dec 1, 2006)

GBov said:


> If it has more meat than a quail, it will be a good DEAD duck lol.
> 
> Actually, I might sell them both at the local farm swap. Anything I get will be a bonus and I might use the money to go buy a couple of adult mosgovies (sp?). They look nice and meaty!


Scovies vs. runners - twenty times meatier - Twenty times poopier. If it bothers you now, wait till you have a yard full of blobs. We have both breeds - the scovies are the best sellers on our farm....but I get sick SiCK SICK! of the muscovies by summer end.


----------



## wolffeathers (Dec 20, 2010)

Ducks are icky only if raised as if they were chicks. 

Put them in a wirefloored brooder with their water at one end and their food opposite. 

You have to raise ducks like ducks.


----------



## Minelson (Oct 16, 2007)

I love my ducks and when they were babies I loved them. Yes they did poop a lot but it never became stinky. Yes they are messy buggers but they make up for it with their funny, entertaining personalities!! 
I can think of a lot more things that are more disgusting than baby ducks!


----------



## Ravenlost (Jul 20, 2004)

I love ducks. I have five (four I raised from ducklings). I want more. I don't find them dirty or disgusting. I find them to be amusing and delightful.


----------



## machinistmike (Oct 16, 2011)

ok so I have now officially removed ducks from the list of critters to have on my future farm after reading all the glowing responses from everyone.


----------



## Minelson (Oct 16, 2007)

I have never regretted for a second getting my 2 ducklings!


----------



## GrannyCarol (Mar 23, 2005)

My ducks are very cute and entertaining. They do require proper care and, if I get too many of them for the space I have, they are a bit of work to keep from getting smelly. Mostly its a matter of me controlling my lust for more cuteness by remembering they do need room and I have to carry water in the winter on the snow/ice. I enjoy them!


----------



## Sherry in Iowa (Jan 10, 2010)

Wow...I *LOVE* our ducks! They aren't chickens..and we don't raise them or treat them that way. When we first got them..we changed their bedding every morning and night..they lived in a tank..lol. Soon as they could be outside on the grass..they were really on their own. They had feed and water outside. They get locked up at night and out first thing in the morning. They make less mess inside the building than the hens do.

I think it's all about preparing to have and raise ducks. The mesh wire is great if you're gonna have the water inside. Having the water at one end and the feed at the other also really helps.

If you bring a duck home and raise it like the chicks/chickens, I guarantee you are gonna pull your hair out.:bash:

We love the ducks and they really do a job on the bugs around here.:bouncy:


----------



## eclipchic (Oct 24, 2010)

I hated cleaning up after ducklings....messy! I'm hoping this year will be the last year where I have to brood them. We bought 3 ducks and 1 drake, all rouens, to raise and hopefully they will do their own brooding when they start to lay and sit. My family LOVES duck meat though. I have a hen sitting on 4 duck eggs now too, no idea if she will raise them or not but I'm hoping so.


----------



## trimpy (Mar 30, 2011)

Ducklings are indeed nasty. Once ours grew up they became our favorite poultry. They roam far and wide eating slugs and all kinds of bugs and grass. They are easy to get back into their pen as well as you can herd them very easily. Our runners and rouens are very good layers and they don't wreck the grass like the chickens do!


----------



## GBov (May 4, 2008)

At what age do you turn ducks loose from the brooder? And when do they get feathers?

Ducks are SOOOOOO DIFFERENT than chickens and quail and turkeys!

They were so soft and floofy when little and now they are blooby and scruffy looking with the same amount of floof trying to cover MUCH larger bodies.


----------

