Quack!!!

[Monica]

My mother had me going on a wild "goose" chase this morning in trying to catch a duckling. I ended up having to jump into someones yard to chase the duckling out so that I could catch him. Earlier, he was chased by a cat. I doubt this duckling is wild as we have no natural water sources around (besides the lake which is bone dry 70-90% of the year), unless someone intentionally caught this duckling from a park in town and brought it back... More likely this duckling was either bought or farm raised (well, I haven't seen any local ducks but then again its not impossible).

I have him set up in the spare room in a large box, the bottom covered with classified ads (about 4 layers), a glass pan with water (entire box wet now, btw... he seemed to enjoy the water while I wasn't looking), and a popsicle box to hide in. At the moment, I also have a light shining down into the box for some extra heat.

I am wondering however, for the time being, what can I feed him, if anyone knows??? I don't think bread would be a good idea (we only have sourdough to begin with anyway), nor dry handfeeding mix, and I don't have any feed stores near me to get some chicken scratch. I assume that green veggies would be fine however, but anything else???

In the least bit, I have no intentions of keeping him because of the cats and dog (who just 'want to play') and also because of my birds.

[Rue]

...bread is fine for the short-term...and table scraps (healthy ones)...

...but if you plan on keeping it longer, you'd need to buy some formulated duck feed I'd think...

[Monica]

Duckling feed, chicken scratch, or poultry starter. We don't have any 'good' bread to feed to begin with (just sourdough, and its pretty hard). For now, he has some fresh cut up parsley and romaine lettuce. Don't plan on keeping for various reasons, another being that we don't really have any place to keep him at. However, I am guessing that he's about 3 weeks old....

[Rue]

If I remember correctly, baby ducks can eat chick pellets (or crumbs) for about a month, and then go on a duck grower diet (think that's what it's called)...lettuce is perfect (just no iceberg - no nutrients at all)...

...my aunt always bought day-old bread for cheap and broke that up and fed it in addition to the prepared feed, and to the table scraps...

...I loved feeding the ducks...

[Monica]

The chick pellets/crumbs would be the chicken scratch or the poultry starter stuff...

I've been doing some searches, though not too much entirely yet as what I've found is just things that I already 'knew' (memory being refreshed, basically).

[Rue]

...sorry I can't be of more help...that's all I remember from my aunt's place...

...personally I've only raised chickens from babies (bird-wise) and we always used the commercial feed plus scraps...

...ducks can make excellent pets too, you do know that, right?

[Monica]

Yes, I've heard and HAVE SEEN (on tv) of ducks making great pets! However, right now he's more in danger of the cats wanting to play (or worse... Squirt, our male kitten actually killed a quail at the age of 4 months! and the dog, he can get rough when he wants to but is afraid of the cats even if he persists on chasing them...).

For now, I'm more interested in keeping him warm and happy though he enjoys hissing at us if we move (don't blame him as he thinks he's cornered and will be injured..., don't want him running around the room, either) or even taking a stab at us, so he's got punk, for sure! I've heard/seen keeping them in the box when they are young, and have heard of others keeping older ones in the bathroom, however I don't think people would enjoy going into the bathroom to find a duck in there! We only have the master-bedroom bath and the guest bathroom, the only one really suitable for keeping him would be the master-bedroom one, as it's the only one with a window (guest bathrooms window was painted over as a shed was put on back-porch where the window is.... we have plans on removing that shed sometime in the future). As far as anything else, we don't have a place to keep him outside, and if we were able to get something set up for him at a later age, we would have to keep the dog away...

I don't really plan on keeping him however because of our financial situation, however my mother is interested in keeping him! Anyway, here is his current setup (in the spare room) and a snap-shot of his face (he didn't like the flash, though)....

[kp_in_scott]

I agree that it looks like a baby mallard. It will not take him/her long to figure out where the feed comes from and there is nothing sweeter than feeding baby ducks. They peck it out of your hands so fast, but it doesn't hurt because they have rounded beaks. It tickles. We used to raise White Peking ducks. If he/she is playing in the water, make sure he has a heat source to help dry out. His mom would be his heat source in the wild. If you have some seed mix that is small, he could eat some of that too, until you could get some duck feed/chicken feed. He will probably wet it real good int he water before he eats it.

[Monica]

I've been thinking that he's a young captive bred mallard... He's already eating the greens that I've been giving him, which is good! He does enjoy playing in the water, as the entire bottom gets wet! I've got one towel in there for now (had two earlier!), and a lamp nearby (don't want to leave it on too long as its not a heat lamp and gets pretty hot within a short time).


My mother is planning on getting some feed for him after work, so he'll have some proper food besides his greens to chow on!

[Franciscus]

He's really cute.We used to have a pet duck when we were living on a farm. They are personable little creatures. I also had a teacher in college who had a pet duck that'd peck on their neighbours basement window untill their poodle would be sent out. They were best buds and would play together.