DUCK Diet DECODED
What diet is right for your duck and why?
While dining on a slime-coated slug or fat grub may sound nauseating to you, to a duck, those foods rank as haute cuisine. Like their wild relatives, domestic ducks are omnivorous and love foraging for a wide variety of creepy-crawly fare such as slugs, worms, mosquito larvae, beetle grubs and snails. Ducks relish both aquatic vegetation, such as duckweed, and terrestrial vegetation, such as grass, and crave many of the same crops we do: corn, tomatoes, blueberries, lettuce, grains and more. Ducks eat fish and frogs and will even snatch a mouse or bird on occasion. It’s precisely this ability to scavenge for their own chow and efficiently convert a variety of feedstuffs to meat and eggs that makes these fowl so valuable to farmers around the world.
A small duck flock allowed to roam where there is abundant natural forage costs much less to feed than a confined flock that needs purchased, concentrated rations. The drawback is that a flock subsisting solely on forage will probably not grow as fast or produce as many eggs as one raised on a nutritionally complete commercial diet. In reality, most keepers of small flocks, unless they raise their birds in complete confinement, take the middle road
when it comes to feeding. Many encourage their ducks to hunt for their own vittles part of the day or year while also providing the birds with supplemental feed to meet nutritional requirements and to keep the flock productive.
There’s no one right way to feed ducks that fits all flocks and all situations. In addition to reading this magazine, ask other experienced duck raisers about what they feed their fowl — particularly those whose birds look
healthy and fine feathered, breed well, and live long, productive lives. If you can, consult a veterinarian or extension expert in your area who is familiar with waterfowl. In the meantime, here are some basics about duck nutrition and diets to get you started.
DUCK NUTRITIONAL REQUIREMENTS
The feed you toss to your ducks must provide them with good nutrition so they will have the energy they need for essential activities, such as feeding, digestion, breathing, walking, reproduction and body temperature maintenance. The diet must supply nutrients, including protein, that allow the birds to develop healthy feathers, muscle, bones and eggs. Given an inadequate diet, your ducks’ health, growth and productivity will suffer. To reach their potential, ducks need to obtain the following nutrients and supplements from their diets in balanced amounts.
PROTEIN
When a duck ingests protein — from some nice plump beetle larvae, for instance — its digestive system breaks this nutrient down into amino acids. Amino acids are critical building blocks in the synthesis of proteins. The duck can use them to make up the proteins it needs for the formation of muscle and nerve fibers, feathers and skin, and eggs. But not all amino acids are alike. Essential amino acids can be obtained by the duck only through its diet, whereas nonessential amino acids can be produced by the animal itself. Protein quality varies from source to source, and one diet source alone won’t supply all the amino acids a duck needs. Consequently, you’ll see a number of protein sources, such as fish, bone, meat and soybean meals, in formulated poultry feeds. Grains, such as wheat and milo, also provide protein.
CARBOHYDRATES
Ducks use carbohydrates, found in sugars and starches, as fuel to give them energy for flying, foraging, breeding, egg production and bodily maintenance. Unlike the chambered stomachs of ruminants, such as the goat, a duck’s simple stomach is incapable of digesting large amounts of fibrous material. That’s why waterfowl feeds are based primarily on carbohydrate-rich grains — such as corn, oats, wheat and milo — not fiber-packed hay.
FATS
Dietary fat provides a concentrated source of energy and serves as an energy reserve. It contains fatty acids important for vitamin and calcium absorption, nerve impulse transmission and tissue structure. Corn oil, soybean oil and other fats contained in formulated feeds also help eliminate dust and improve taste.
VITAMINS
Although needed only in small amounts, vitamins are critical to healthy growth, nervous system function, metabolism and reproduction. A deficiency of these organic compounds can cause a wide range of health problems, from poor blood clotting and nervous disorders to death. Vitamin overdoses are also bad news. Important vitamins are C, A and D, and the family of B vitamins. Commercial feeds usually contain supplemental vitamins not present in the constituent grains and meals themselves.
MINERALS
Inorganic dietary nutrients needed by ducks include calcium, phosphorous, iron, magnesium, zinc, iodine and salt. Calcium and phosphorous are macro-minerals, meaning that they’re required in larger quantities than are trace minerals such as copper and iron. Like vitamins, minerals must be balanced to maintain good health. For example, calcium and phosphorous in the appropriate ratio contribute to strong bones and egg shells. An excess of calcium, however, can lead to kidney problems. Calcium carbonate, iodized salt, copper sulfate, and other compounds supplement the mineral-poor grains in commercial diets.
WATER
Too often taken for granted, water ranks as the most essential nutrient of all. Water performs a number of life-giving bodily chores: it ferries feed through the digestive tract, eliminates waste products, regulates body temperature and makes up 90 percent of blood volume. Offer your flock an ample supply of clean drinking water each day.
GRIT AND OYSTER SHELL
Ducks possess a gizzard that does the work of teeth, grinding consumed feed into an easy-todigest form with the assistance of tiny pebbles and coarse sand called grit. Free-roaming ducks will ingest most of the natural grit they need while foraging and dabbling, but you’ll definitely need to offer confined birds insoluble granite grit, which you can purchase from the feed store.
Feed stores also sell crushed oyster shell for laying fowl, to provide the extra calcium they need to produce eggs with strong shells. If you feed a commercial diet, check the breakdown of nutrients on the bag’s label: the feed may already contain enough calcium for your laying birds (they need approximately 2.8 percent calcium).
Keep in mind that an excess of calcium can be detrimental to a duck’s health, so don’t offer oyster shell to nonlaying birds unless their feed is deficient in this mineral (check the feed label; these ducks require only about 0.8 percent calcium).
OTHER SUPPLEMENTS
When used according to directions, a powdered vitamin and electrolyte supplement made for poultry can benefit both new ducklings and ducks that are ill, geriatric or stressed. Probiotics, the good bacteria that make yogurt such a healthy food, may also help your birds ward off disease. Look for both products at feed stores and poultry supply companies.
FEED OPTIONS
Now that you have an idea about which nutrients and supplements your ducks need to thrive, let’s look at the four main feed options available.
COMMERCIAL DUCK DIETS
Chicken folks have it easy: step into any feed store around the country, and you’ll find balanced commercial feeds made for chicks, laying hens and meat birds. Some stores even carry organic chicken feed. For duck raisers, it’s a different story. In many areas, finding a nutritionally complete feed prepared especially for ducks can pose a challenge.
Still, it’s worth doing some detective work to find a quality commercial waterfowl diet, especially if you’re a neophyte duck owner. Complete diets take the guesswork out of feeding, plus they’re scientifically formulated to provide ducks with the proper ratios of all the essential nutrients they need to stay healthy and produce well.
If local feed stores don’t carry duck feed, ask if they can order some. If you’re willing to pay a bit more, you can also order waterfowl rations online through a feed supplier and through some hatchery or poultry supply companies. Follow the suppliers’ instructions on how much feed to offer your flock.
DO-IT-YOURSELF DIETS
If you keep a lot of ducks or can’t locate commercial waterfowl feed, concocting your own duck ration out of ingredients gleaned from the feed store may save you some money. Wheat, whole oats, cracked corn, meat and bone meal, iodized salt, oyster shell, commercially prepared vitamin premixes and other components can be combined to form a healthy feed for your flock. Some raisers even have their duck rations custom mixed, ground and formed into pellets at a feed mill. Converting the mix to pellets prevents picky ducks from choosing their favorite grains and wasting the rest.
Creating a custom duck diet isn’t easy. You can’t just throw ingredients together any which way or pick a couple of your flock’s favorite food items (such as corn) and leave it at that. Be aware, also, that some feedstuff used for other animals, such as rapeseed meal and peanut meal, can even be toxic for ducks under certain circumstances. Your birds need the appropriate nutrients in the right balance; no one food item will provide all their nutritional requirements. Keep in mind, too, that their dietary needs change as they grow. The following sections give nutritional requirements by age and stage. For instance, a laying duck
must consume plenty of calcium to produce all those eggs, but an excess of calcium in a growing duckling’s diet can harm its skeleton. While you don’t have to be a poultry nutritionist to make feed for your ducks, it’s critical to have some knowledge about duck nutrition or to at least know where to go for accurate information. For starters, you’ll want to pick up a copy of Dave Holderread’s book, Storey’s Guide to Raising Ducks, which gives detailed formulations for making homemade duck feed.
GRASS-BASED DIETS
Animals reared in pasture-based systems can indulge in natural behaviors, such as basking in the sunshine, breathing fresh air, and foraging for grass and other goodies, such as weeds and bugs. And here’s a major plus: the animals generally have more room to move about and exercise. This is a far cry from the restrictive lives led by factory-farm livestock. Proponents of grass-based livestock farming contend that the meat and eggs from their fowl are tastier and healthier than are those of factory-farm fowl.
Pasture-raised poultry are usually kept in one of two ways: in portable tractors — small, enclosed pens with open bottoms that the farmer moves once or twice daily to fresh pasture — or in free-range situations, in which they roam a fenced pasture by day and stay in a house at night. By using electric poultry mesh or other temporary fencing, the raiser can rotate the birds through smaller pasture sections, allowing grazed areas to recover.
If you provide the right rotations (moving the flock before they mow the grass below 3 inches or so) and proper pasture management (mowing, liming and reseeding as needed), your ducks can glean much of their diet from pasture as they dine on tender grasses, dandelion leaves, chickweed and insect treats. You’ll probably still need to supplement this fresh forage with commercial or homemade feed, particularly as plants go dormant in late fall and winter.
Ducks tend to eat more and grow faster when offered a pellet diet.
Make sure that your ducks’ feeding grounds are free of toxic pesticides, fertilizers and herbicides. The ducks, for their part, will enrich the soil by depositing their nitrogen-rich droppings as an ecofriendly fertilizer.
OTHER POULTRY FEEDS
If you lack pasture, can’t find a commercial duck diet or feel uncomfortable mixing duck rations from scratch, don’t panic. Poultry feeds formulated for chickens, turkeys or game birds can also work for duck flocks, but some dietary modifications and additions may be necessary because these birds have slightly different nutrient requirements. For example, ducklings need more niacin than chicks do, or they can suffer from leg problems. If possible, avoid feeding your flock broiler starter or other feeds not formulated for waterfowl that contain antibiotics and other added medications; some of these can harm ducks.
NUTRITIONAL REQUIREMENTS BY AGE
To ensure that any type of ration — commercial duck, homemade or other poultry feed — is appropriate for your birds, you should understand what your ducks require in the way of nutrition at various ages.
NEW AND GROWING DUCKLINGS
Newly hatched ducklings need plenty of calories, more protein than mature ducks need (about 18 to 20 percent total), sufficient niacin and a calcium to phosphorous ratio of 1:1. Their feed must be in a form that tiny beaks can handle, such as crumbles, mash, soaked pellets or dry pellets no longer than one-eighth of an inch. It’s recommended that ducklings receive this starter diet for the first two to three weeks.
Fast-growing ducklings from about three to eight weeks of age will experience a slower growth rate if switched to a 15 to 16 percent protein diet during this time. This lower protein grower diet can help reduce the incidence of wing problems, such as angel wing and leg problems associated with speedy growth, such as lameness. Producers who want fast-growing meat birds often stick with the higher-protein fare until the birds are ready for slaughter at around eight to 12 weeks of age.
MATURE DUCKS
Somewhere around the nine-week mark, a duck’s dietary needs change again. From this point on, except during breeding or laying, feed them a maintenance diet that contains
about 14 percent protein. Don’t give them feed meant for layers — it has more protein and calcium than they need. Ducks that you keep as pets, rather than as layers or breeders, can stay on this 14-percent-protein diet to maintain a healthy weight.
NUTRITIONAL REQUIREMENTS BY BREEDING STAGE
A duck’s nutritional requirements also change during its breeding stages — the times during which the bird mates, lays eggs (if it’s a female, of course) and undergoes its postnuptial molt.
BREEDING BIRDS
About two to four weeks before breeding season starts, begin feeding your breeding ducks a breeder ration with about 17 percent protein. Commercial waterfowl breeder diets are formulated to provide balanced nutrients that promote breeding performance, hatching egg numbers and the development of healthy ducklings without making ducks fat. Keep feeding your ducks this ration until egg laying has stopped.
LAYING BIRDS
Laying ducks whose purpose is to produce eggs for eating also need plenty of protein and calcium while pumping out all those lovely eggs. Commercial layer diets contain approximately 16 to 17 percent protein and 2.5 to 3 percent calcium (the nutrient levels are slightly different from those in a breeder diet). Offer these birds some oyster shell if their diet provides insufficient calcium. As with breeder diets, start your flock on this ration two to four weeks before laying season commences, and keep feeding it until all laying halts.
MOLTING BIRDS
When feathers start flying far and wide during molting periods, many raisers offer their birds a small amount of cat kibble for added protein (the amino acids help build feathers). Adding oats can also supply extra protein.
NUTRITIONAL REQUIREMENTS DURING COLD & HOT WEATHER
Because ducks don’t hibernate, they need plenty of carbohydrates from their feed to help them stay warm and active on frigid winter days. If you live in a cold climate, you’ll probably notice that your flock consumes more chow during winter. Many farmers offer their flocks a limited amount of energyrich cracked corn or scratch grain mix, both available at feed stores, to help them weather the cold (be careful — too much corn can make ducks fat).
During hot weather in summer, laying ducks often require increased protein in their diet to keep up production, as they tend to eat less. Remember to check their water sources regularly, as their water consumption may also go up on sweltering days.
FREE CHOICE OR SET AMOUNT?
Ducklings and growing ducks should be fed on a free-choice basis — that is, they should be allowed to dine on their rations throughout the day and eat all they want. Whether you offer your mature ducks their rations as a free choice or as a set amount of feed at scheduled feeding times — usually offered twice a day — will depend on how you manage your flock (free range or in confinement) and whether freeloaders, such as pigeons and crows, pose a problem for you and your ducks.
How much your ducks will eat — or need to eat — depends on many factors, including their size and age, the season and how active they are. If you use a commercial diet, check the label for the manufacturer’s suggested feed amounts, and keep in mind that ducks consume more than chickens do.
While it isn’t necessary to weigh your ducks, pay attention to your flock’s general condition and food consumption. Are your ducks so fat they can barely waddle? Do you notice prominent keels or poor plumage, which are indications that your birds may not be getting enough food? Is your flock leaving loads of grain uneaten, which at the end of the day becomes fodder for the rats and raccoons in your area to gorge on? If so, consider reevaluating how much chow to dish out to your flock. ■