These girls are 10 months old, they were recently wormed with Flubenvet and treated for mites / lice with a poultry spot on.

Working for ducklings this past year and a half has been the best in my career, I have made great relationships with the children and within the team. There is a risk of water splashing over the heat lamp, so I raise this and turn it off while they bath. Most duck species breed once a year, choosing to do so in favourable conditions ( spring/summer or wet seasons).If it’s warm enough where you are, take your baby ducklings outside to get some exercise and forage around! Cold, rainy, and windy conditions can lead to death from exposure (hypothermia) and may either reduce food availability or prevent ducklings from exploiting food resources. Archeological evidence shows that Māori people in New Zealand hunted the flightless Finsch's duck, possibly to extinction, though rat predation may also have contributed to its fate.

The Orpington fowl is more impressive in the flesh than in photographs that accompany the various books on pure breeds of poultry. The shelducks make up the tribe Tadornini in the family Anserinae in some classifications, [15] and their own subfamily, Tadorninae, in others, [17] while the steamer ducks are either placed in the family Anserinae in the tribe Tachyerini [15] or lumped with the shelducks in the tribe Tadorini. The heat and wattage of the lamp should be altered based on your ducklings' behavior as they get older. Ducklings will sometimes eat wood shavings, especially during the early days when they haven’t learned where their food is, so use an old towel on top of the shavings for the first week and then keep a close eye on them when you remove the towel. You’ll want to start off with a temperature around 90 degrees for their first few days then drop about five degrees for a few days.They are still vulnerable to predators at this age, so if there are birds of prey, rats, crows, even magpies, nearby, they will need to be in a secure, covered run. It is essential to get this right – medicated chick crumbs contain drugs for the prevention of coccidiosis. She owns and manages Stellar Game Birds, Poultry, Waterfowl LLC, a selective breeding operation with game birds, poultry, and waterfowl.