[tesni]

Hello, the poopy, noisy, greedy ducklings are moving out of my house and into the shed.  They are three weeks old now and I am hoping they are ok now to not be under heat at night in this mild weather - they will be in a hutch in a shed so should be warm enough - all six can huddle together. 
My real question, eventually, is do I need to put food and water in with them through the night or can this be just for in the daytime when they are out in the run?  Thanks.

[happychickens]

My friend has ducks, her setup is the duck house and then a wire cage enclosure of about 5ft so that the house door can be open for them to go in and out in the summer, closed in the winter, but you have to open the larger wire door for them to come out into the garden, she has never put water\feed in the actual duck house more than anything becuase it can encourage rodants but also ducks are quite "messy" (thats the polite word for it!), but does have water in the wired area which they can use if they are out of the main sleeping quarters.  From my chickens point of view if the weather is hot then I do put water in the house on an evening sometimes in the summer.   

[tesni]

thanks - yes they are messy  and not content until food all gone and water sprayed everywhere, they get through loads.  It will be much easier to keep them sanitary now. I must admit I prefer my chickens but my children were insistent on ducks - I may live to regret this   

[orchardlady]

I started keeping ducks last year and bought myself 3 little Aylesbury duckings at about 3 weeks old. Unfortunately they all turned out to be boys but that's another story. They do not need water or food in their house at night. I used an oblong chicken trough with wire mesh over the top so they couldn't get in but could get their heads in, as they can get chilled in the cool of the Spring if they get wet before they are feathered up. The wire also kept the distribution of water everywhere much more controlled. When they went to bed I then used a the hose pipe to 'wash' the grass of the run down of all the ducky poop. Once a week I moved the run onto clean grass. As they grew and feathered up I gave them a cat litter tray and then moved onto a children's swimming pool, l aways ensuring that they were able to get out as well as in. Ducks can drown if they cannot get out of their water.
Hope this helps and you will love your ducks as they grow. The eggs are out of this world I almost prefer them to chickens eggs. I've kept chickens for donkeys years and wished I'd started keeping ducks a long time ago.

Orchardlady.

[tesni]

Thank you for that OL, you are giving me hope!  Now that they are out of my house I am already more fond of them I got three cherry valley ducklings (not for the table) as they were guaranteed female as well as the one we hatched ourselves and two others - they may or may not be boys but at least this way we have a mix and hopefully a few eggs.