How to Raise Healthy, Happy Ducks.

Duck farming is tedious at times, hard work most of the time, and usually a lot of fun. There are a lot of things that a typical duck farmer needs to know. In this article we will discuss health care, feeding and good nutrition practices, plus ways to keep your birds happy. The author is a small-stock farmer who raises chickens, ducks and geese for their eggs.

First of all, let's look at a common problem with water fowl. Bumble Foot is a condition that can partially cripple a bird. It is a black callous that forms on the bottoms of their feet, causing them to walk lop-sided. This condition gradually worsens and becomes very painful, causing the bird to limp, or refuse to walk at all. Bumble Foot can be treated with antibiotics but the course of treatment is a long one consisting of several weeks of isolation, during which time, if the patient is a hen, her eggs cannot be eaten.

Ducks are social creatures and hate isolation, which makes them unhappy and upset. They usually do not thrive well in an isolated enclosure, so prevention of the disease is actually easier than the treatment once the disease is present. Prevention techniques are simple enough: Remove the waterfowl droppings from the ground they walk on most often. This, you may say, is an endless circle. ( Remove the droppings, they make more droppings and then walk on them all day long.) True, it is an endless job, but the whole idea is simply to keep the droppings from piling up.

The reason for this is the fact that bacteria are present in the fowls' droppings and when they walk on their own feces, the bacteria attach themselves to the bottoms of their webbed feet. Chickens don't have this problem so much because their droppings are dry and usually blow away into powder within a day or so. This is why chicken coops always have a thin dusting of light gray powder on every surface, that closely resembles talcum powder in texture. But duck and goose droppings are nearly all water, and usually remain moist for several days, during which time the birds repeatedly walk over them.

A simple rinse-down with the garden hose is enough to wash away the fresh droppings and will also serve the dual purpose of entertaining the birds who happen to love water with a passion, including mud water. Why they don't get sick drinking the water containing feces, I don't know, but it does not seem to bother them. Perhaps it is because the bacteria is more dispersed by the water by that time. I hose down the most well-traveled areas of their pen every morning and this helps keep the Bumble Foot problem to a minimum.

Ducks are also prone to Botulism, a sometimes fatal condition caused by eating rotten vegetation. Ducks are not particularly fussy about what goes into their mouths. If they recognize it as food they have tried before, they will eat it no matter how it tastes. Thus, the farmer has to be careful about giving his birds fruits and vegetables with mold or rot on them. It may be tempting to rid yourself of your food garbage in just this manner, but it is extremely dangerous for your ducks. I try to cut away the bad stuff and feed the rest to the birds. Botulism is nothing more than serious food poisoning, and if you have ever suffered from that condition then you understand how the poor duck suffers before it dies.

Ducks enjoy green things, like lettuce, cabbage, cucumbers, (a favorite) dandelion greens, and horseradish, plus virtually anything else green they can reach. I have seen them strip pine needles from trees just because they crave something green. They will also eat other fruits and veggies, such as watermelon, apples, (crushed or thinly sliced) carrots, (sliced into thin strips) corn on the cob and tomatoes. Ducks will also eat cracked corn, laying mash, duck pellets and birdseed.

Make sure that no moisture can get into the granular food. The ducks will eat it that way, but it is a potential health hazard because mold will quickly grow on wet duck feed. Keep their food away from all outdoor sources of water, and make sure that the inside water sources are far away from the feed pails. Ducks will get a mouthful of food and walk to the bucket of water to wash it down, so they quite often drip water into their food. If the two buckets are kept a reasonable distance apart, this is less likely to occur.

Hardware Disease is a problem with fowl as well. This condition is usually painful, prolonged, and eventually fatal unless the object is swiftly removed from the bird. They pick up nails, screws, whatever and swallow them, and that can be deadly serious. Try to keep the barn floor as clean as possible, and do the same with the outside pen. I had to remove a thumb tack from the foot pad of a gander once, so I know how easy it is for them to not only swallow foreign objects but to step on them as well.