Raising Call Ducks
from Incubation to Fully Feathered
We incubate our Call eggs in the
homemade incubator and hatch
them in the homemade hatcher. We
keep the humidity in both at the proper level using a glass baking pan,
a piece of 1/2 by 1 inch wire and a terry cloth towel.
A day or two prior to hatch we move
the eggs from the incubator to the hatcher. The eggs are placed
in a tray that has divider and a top. This is how we keep the
different colors separate.
As the ducklings hatch we use a toe
punch to mark each duckling. Different patterns of toe punches
help us determine later which breeding produced which duckling.
It also enables us to pair up unrelated ducks for future breeding
programs.
When the ducklings come out of the
hatcher (when they are dry) they first go to an indoor brooder.
It
consists of a large plastic tub with non skid drawer liner in the
bottom, a small waterer and a feed dish. We use a clip on light
fixture to supply heat and cover the top of the brooder with a piece of
hardware cloth. The cover keeps my cats out of the
duckies.
After a few days to a week the
ducklings go out to the outdoor brooder Ken built last year. It
is a large box on legs with 5 compartments, each compartment has a
light for heat, and wire bottom to let the droppings go through.
The outdoor brooders have larger feeders and larger water containers
that let the ducklings bathe and splash. I use large rocks both
in and out of the water containers so the ducks have a way to get in
and out of the water safely. There's nothing quite as
heartbreaking as finding drowned ducklings in the water
containers. I usually try to have at least a dozen ducklings in
each brooder compartment so they can group together for warmth, but as
they grow I try to keep the numbers in line with the space, they stay
cleaner if they aren't overcrowded.
After spending some time in the ducky
brooder the ducklings get moved to the 'condos'.
Here I try to
have no more than 6 ducklings per compartment, and as they grow I split
them up into smaller groups to make sure they have room to move.
In the condos they get larger water containers (and larger rock steps
in and out).
As soon as they start to feather out
well and if the weather cooperates they are released out of the condos
and hit the ground (no, I place them gently on the ground!). I
place child sized wading pools in the area of the condos and large feed
containers. I still need to give them ways to get in and out of
the pools. I usually use a brick on the low side of the inside of
the pool (they are rarely level) and a piece of 4x4 lumber or a stack
of 2 or 3 nursery plant flats turned upside down as the outside of the
pool step. As they get bigger they start going everywhere in the
yard so I set up the pools near plants that I know will need the water
when I dump the pools to change water.
The most important things about water
are: They need enough to bathe and immerse their heads in, it
needs to be changed a minimum of once a day, and they need to be able
to get out of it.
If ducklings don't have enough clean,
fresh water the get 'sticky eye'. I use an ointment made for
ophthalmic (eye) use. There are a number of ointments available,
I have always used the triple antibiotic eye ointment
at least once a
day, preferably twice a day. The best remedy for 'sticky eye' is
still prevention!
I feed my ducklings a non medicated
chick starter (crumble) feed that is 16% protein. I have read
many discussions about feed - medicated versus non medicated, protein
content, etc. The chick starter works well for me. This year I am
adding kelp meal to all the bird feed we use here. As the
ducklings get big enough to leave the condos I put them on a pellet
feed that is 20% protein. This is a feed that our local feed
producer markets for beef, it's a 3/16 pellet and is all natural,
containing no urea. Their diet is also supplemented with corn,
and once they hit the ground they get plenty of greens. We mix
diatomaceous earth with all our bagged feeds. This helps control flies
as well as some intestinal worms. Believe me, as much as little ducks
eat and poop, fly control is a must!
All of our birds get treats of dog
food, floating catfish food, hardboiled eggs and whatever else I dream
up from year to year. This year I think I'll do sprouts for them
again, it's easy and they like them. The ducks absolute favorite
treat is pools of fresh water with live minnows from the bait
shop. It's a gas to watch them go after the minnows, especially
when it's a new thing for them.
When the
ducks get big they can get into the big pool. It's a Fiberglas
satellite dish we have set up at a high point in our yard. Ken
plugged the holes made by the mounting bolts, put a PVC pipe drain in
the bottom and used a brass fitting on the end so we can attach a hose
to drain it. I use the duck water to water the plants in my
garden during the hottest part of the year and it really saves on our
water bill. The dish is set on Haydock blocks, those large
concrete building blocks. There is a wooden ramp up to the rim of
the pool. We're planning to landscape the satellite pool area and
I'd like to set up another one this year.
