How to hatch duck eggs

Ducklings are one of the cutest baby animals in existence! I have been raising ducks since 2009 and have had both standard size, large and bantamn ducks! I started hatching duck eggs as soon as I got my first incubator. Actually my first duck was a pekin egg that was added into my marans eggs shipment as a surprise extra egg. I named him Quackers!

The first time I incubated duck eggs I just popped the eggs in my incubator along with the chicken eggs and used all the same settings as I do for chicks. It worked and he hatched, but I would quickly find out that I needed to change a few things to have every hatch go perfectly.

Other than the longer incubation period, duck eggs and chicken eggs are quite similar in incubation procedure. With a few tweaks though, I started to get a better hatch rate and I was hooked on hatching my own ducklings.

Of course the easiest method is always to have a hen hatch the eggs if you have a broody hen. Either a chicken hen or duck hen will work, they both can hatch duck eggs just fine. It gets a little funny when the baby ducks try to swim in the water container though as chickens don't understand that behavior!

If you don't have a broody hen though, you'll have to chose and use an incubator.

Easy to raise poultry (besides chickens)

I've been raising poultry since 2009 and through the years I have raised lots of different types of poultry. Some of these worked out really well and others not so much! When choosing other poultry to raise it's important to note how many eggs they will actually lay, because they're not all the same!

For instance most people think that a goose is a lot like a duck. I mean they're not wrong in certain aspects but if you're looking at egg laying, a goose only lays about 30 - 50 eggs each year whereas a duck can lay 300! That's a big difference, especially if you're raising them for eating eggs! 

Related reading: Comparing size and nutrition of different types of poultry eggs! Ducks, chickens, turkeys and more!

Now if you're raising them to hatch those eggs and sell the babies, then many goslings demand a higher price than ducklings so the goose might actually be a better choice.

What should you feed wild ducks?

Growing up, we used to go to the park every winter and feed the ducks. Like everyone else, we would take bags of half stale bread, uneaten crackers etc. We had no idea how bad it was for them, we just knew they swarmed us like they were starving.

Unfortunately, bread was the worst thing we could have given them! Of course, eating bread is better than starving and often the population of ducks in local parks outgrows available resources, especially when winter comes. 

Why can't you feed ducks bread?

There are lots of reasons why you shouldn't feed bread to wild ducks and geese and the most important one is nutrition! It has calories which they might need, but practically nothing in the way of necessary vitamins and minerals. 

To ducks bread is like junk food and they would rather eat it than look for their own foods. 

A ducks natural foods are grasses and weeds, worms, bugs and small minnows. These are all full of healthy things that will be missing in their diet if they eat a lot of bread or crackers instead. 

Can ducks and chickens live together?

Have you ever raised ducks and chickens together? I have. I get asked "can ducks and chickens live together?" all the time. Gotta be honest, I just don't recommend it. I mean, you can raise chickens and ducks in the same coop, but there are a few things you need to watch out for to make sure they get along safely. Especially if you keep males!

Many people choose to raise a mixed flock because they only have 1 coop. Building or buying multiple coops just might not work for many reasons from space or zoning to expense. When I first started raising ducks I had them in the same coop with my chickens. We built a duck coop for them after about 6 months. 

I personally like having my ducks in their own coop because of the mess. Ducks are so much messier than chickens! I had a real hard time keeping the deep litter method going when ducks were in my chicken coop. Their poop tends to have a higher liquid content, plus they swim then come in the coop wet.

What kind of treats can ducks eat?

We only have 2 ducks right now, and they are kind of having a rough few weeks with everything that's been going on. So I've been giving them lots of treats and special attention lately. Ducks love treats but just like kids they tend to prefer the junk food! When feeding ducks though you need to be careful that you give them healthy snacks most of the time. 

While ducks love treats like bread, it's really not that good for them. If you think about it, white bread isn't all that good for us either which brings me to the first rule of duck treats: If it's not good for you, it's not good for them. Just like when feeding chickens treats, things that shouldn't be given to ducks include alcohol, caffeine, lots of salt and spoiled foods.

Call ducks, the mini duck you need in your life!

If you're thinking of adding ducks to your flock, then you should get the ducks that look too cute to be real. Call ducks! They are the bantams of the duck world. They basically look like real live toy ducks! For a little duck they are full of personality though and once you start raising call ducks, you'll just fall in love!

I raised call ducks for several years before I moved on to standard sized ducks. They are a wonderful duck for families to raise and my kids just loved having them. The ducks seemed to like them too! They were a lot more personable then the larger breeds we've raised and would follow us around the yard (in a single file line) when we let them out of their pen.

Chicken breeds to raise for pretty eggs

When I got my first chickens 10 years ago, I hung out on chicken forums an awful lot. It seemed like everyone in there was obsessed with having a 'pretty egg basket'. Chicken breeds were selected carefully by what color egg they would produce. Blue egg layers and chocolate brown egg layers were the crowd favorites, though green egg layers were favored over the standard brown.

I didn't pick my chicken breeds that way.

I bought whatever they had at the feed store to round out the Marans my husband wanted and the silkies I wanted. I ended up with easter eggers and golden comets because that's all that was left when I got there.

I acquired olive eggers when a Marans breeder sent me extra eggs just to fill the carton. Accidentally, this made for a beautiful range of farm fresh egg colors!

Ducklings! Everything you need to get started raising them

Today, I wanted to talk about how to raise ducklings, exactly what they need and why. Since we've had ducks before, we already have everything we need to raise ducklings this year but when you're just getting started with ducks it can be a bit confusing. Ducklings are almost the same as chicks with just a few small differences. 

We go back and forth on ducks here, often raising them for a few years before taking a break. We were on a break, but that darn kid talked me into ducklings again! 

I always say we don't need ducks again because ducklings are messy. They are! The old duck pond just sits there though, and the waterfowl coop has been empty over a year...and so we got ducklings. *sigh*

Raising baby ducks for beginners

Ducklings are obviously going to need a brooder with a heat source, feed, water and bedding. That's pretty much exactly what chicks need so chances are that if you've raised chicks, then you already have most of it on hand. 

They also might need a special water dish and niacin supplements, and maybe a swimming area but that should be the only differences. Maybe. 

Comparing different types of eggs

An egg is an egg is an egg....or is it? We all know that eggs fresh from the farm or your own backyard dwelling chicken flock are higher in nutrients then store bought eggs. Is that it though? Actually, no. It also depends what kind of egg you're eating.

Did you know that a guinea egg has more than twice the protein as a same sized chicken egg? Or that 5 quail eggs have almost the exact same nutritional content as 1 chicken egg, but are higher in calories? Or that ounce for ounce, duck eggs have more fat than goose eggs? Weird, right? 

I spent a few hours crunching the numbers and I figured out how all the different types of farm fresh eggs, stack up against each other. Why? Well....I find it fascinating. Plus I was bored, but that's irrelevant! The point is, whether you raise chickens, ducks, geese, guineas, turkey or quail their eggs are all sort of the same, but kinda different.

What does a goose coop need? (duck coop!)

I've had many questions about the details of my goose coop over the years. I've been asked why I built a separate goose coop, what does a goose coop need and was it difficult to build? I decided to answer these questions about my waterfowl coop. 

The coop was built specifically for my 2 Sebastopol geese. It eventually became the duck coop then the banty coop (with a few adjustments) We built the goose coop back in 2011 and it is still going strong. 

It's a very simple design, as I'll explain later, and the run also features a sunk-in pond. A duck or goose coop is fairly easy to build because they don't need a lot of the things chickens do, in fact they don't need much at all.

Khaki Campbell ducks can fly! (really well!)

We've had Khaki Campbell ducks for 2 years now. They are well known as excellent egg layers, but I'm often asked if Khaki Campbell ducks can fly. They can. I was actually told once that I was wrong and that they can not fly. (hmmmm) 

Now I've dodged flying ducks enough to know what's happening above my head, but I understand where some confusion may come in. After all, many people are familiar with the Pekin duck. If you're not...it's that big, fat, white "Donald duck" looking guy. Except they usually don't wear hats and shirts, but I digress. 

Khaki campbells are lighter than you think

Those ducks are a cross breed created for a large sized meat bird. Meat birds seldom get off the ground! They just have too much weight to them. They cannot fly. Just because those ducks cannot fly however, does not mean that other ducks cannot fly. Khaki Campbell ducks are less like a Pekin and more like a Mallard.

In fact, khakis are technically part mallard (going way back) so it makes sense that they would be a lighter more compact duck. Khaki's however, are a much lighter multipurpose breed and while they can be used for meat, they do make for a smaller dinner then the Pekin. They only get to be about 3-5 lbs full grown as opposed to the 9-10 lb meat duck. 

The Khaki Campbell breed

The Khaki Campbell breed was developed in England at the turn of the 20th century. They are a cross breed between Rouen, Mallard and Runner ducks though the exact breeding was never revealed. 

On average, the hens lay 300 eggs per year. Khaki Campbells can lay at this rate for around 5 years. Their eggs are equivalent to a large chicken's egg and are white but seem sort of opaque. They are smoother than a chicken egg (more like marble) without the slightly rough texture.

Khaki Campbell ducks are pretty much all brown, from their feet to their heads. The female has slight color variations in her body feathers and the males head is markedly darker then his body. They're definitely not the fanciest duck breed to own! They do make up for it in their friendly disposition though. This is one of the reasons I decided to raise them. Their just such sweethearts and make excellent pets!

The ducks are laying!

Much to our surprise, we started finding eggs in the duck house this week! The girls are about 5 months old now, but I sorta expected them to hold off till spring like chickens sometimes do. It is November after all! They apparently had other plans, and started laying this week which brings me to the number one reason you should raise ducks: ducks lay eggs all winter long!

Now don't get me wrong, I knew this about ducks when I got them. Especially since these are khaki campbell ducks which are known to lay an average of 300 eggs per year (or more!) I just didn't expect eggs in winter. Yes, I can do the math, it just didn't occur to me. Now that they eggs have arrived though, let's talk about why you should raise ducks for eggs, instead of chickens!

Why the deep litter method never works for me!

The deep litter method is my absolute favorite coop bedding method. It's easy to do, very low maintenance and perfect for winter. Except, the deep litter method never works for me in the big coop! I can use it with no problem in all of my other coops and it works perfectly. It's just the one coop I have a problem with, and it's a very simple reason why.

It all started when I read about the deep litter method on a very busy chicken forum. What is the deep litter method you ask? It's not changing the coop litter all winter long. Who doesn't like that idea, right? So I did some research and learned more about it on Mother Earth news and got started.

It sounds simple but it is just a little bit more involved: add DE, add wood shavings and mix often. DE= food grade diatomaceous earth. Every week, add a little more litter, some DE and mix again. The chickens mix it too so that helps the whole process.