Monday, October 22, 2012

Feeding Ducklings - The Critical Step in Raising Baby Ducks

By Mary Louise


If you're raising ducks for profit, know that your ducks' overall health has a direct influence on the profitability of your business. This means that if you want to rake in the profits, you'll have to learn about feeding baby ducks properly. Feed ducklings with wet started mash for 8 weeks. Native ducklings raised the native way are feed moistened boiled rice for the first 33 weeks, 4 to 5 times a day. During the first few days, give feed at night. Start giving water in drinking troughs or fountains on the 2nd day. On the fifth day, add finely chopped small shrimps to boiled rice. Increase their feed as ducklings grow older.

At the age of one month, feed ducklings with tiny fresh water snails and boiled unhulled rice. Give only enough feed to be consumed as they tend to spoil when left long in the troughs. Feed one day to 6-week old ducklings with starter mash with 10-21% crude protein; for 6-week old to 4-month old duckling with grower mash with 16% crude protein; and 4-month old ducks and above with layer mash or ratio wit 16% crude protein.Mash feed for ducklings is composed of corn, soybean meal, fish meal, dried whey, rice bran with oyster shell and bone meal with vitamin-mineral supplements.

If mash feed is preferred, give only sufficient to be consumed quickly at one time for 10 to 15 minutes. Wet mash tends to spoil when left long in hoppers. If feed is given at intervals, ducklings learn to eat more readily and their appetites are developed to stuff themselves in between drinks, digest food quickly and be ready to eat their fill for the next feeding time.

Four to five feedings a day are sufficient for ducklings over 2 weeks old. Provide plenty of clean, fresh water as ducks drink after every mouthful of food. Customize your feeding schedule according to the habits of your ducklings, and switch to more protein-rich feeds once they turn into ducks.When they mature, you'll have to go about feeding baby ducks using chicken grower pellet feed, corn-grain scratch feed, and insoluble poultry feed.

Ducks are wasteful and slovenly while feeding. Provide proper adequate feeding hoppers to prevent much waste of food. As a feed-saving device, the pellet system of feeding has been introduced in duck nutrition.Fine gravel or grit is necessary to growing ducks to help them grind their feed.




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