The special care for ducks in the first 3 weeks of life

After raising all kind of poultry, ducks had became my favorite one. So, do not be surprised if many blog posts will have as main topic - ducks and duckling.

I started to incubate in mid-April and May when weather start to improve I had 15 wonderful ducklings;

I usually avoid incubating in cold months because ducklings need grass from the first weeks of life. In the night I had been continued to bring home until the ducks hit 3 weeks of life.

During the day, the little ones had access to the natural environment without any danger coming from dogs/cats and wild birds. How I archived this?

One duck coop with floor and cover removable has been used as day space for them. Without floor, little ducks had grass all day long and with a net, the sun has been present also. If it happened to rain, I quick add one polycarbonate plate over.

The duck coop has been projected long and narrow to be able to enter through any gate because later it would become a night space in the large pen of adult ducks.

As a day space it was more than enough for the 15 ducklings up to the age of 3 weeks.

Ducklings are not picky about their food, but instead, they are fussy if they don't have fresh/clean water. I installed an automatic watering system with two gravity cups and put a straw-covered grate under it to keep them from getting muddy.

The cage was moved as they ate the grass under it. Having two handles it was easy to pull on the grass in the sledge system. In the first week, we moved it rarely, later, as they grew, it had to be moved more often due to the mess left behind as well as the need for fresh grass.

The ducklings evolved very well, healthy and happy, without any of them getting sick.

Part two, their growth from 3 weeks of age and up, follows in the next article.