Aaron von Frank

Hi! This article should answer every question you have about duck diapers, including where we get them, how we put them on, etc: https://www.tyrantfarms.com/how-to-diaper-a-duck-with-instructional-video/. If you have any questions after reading, please let us know!

Aaron von Frank

Hi Christy and thanks for your concern for Miss Mable, the pekin duck! She sounds like a sweetheart – as seems to be typical for the breed.

Everything you’ve described sounds like an ideal setup within the framework you have to work with. Two extra things you may want to consider:

1. Grow lights – Maybe get some sort of tripod grow light system on a timer for Miss Mable’s living area when she’s in the garage on days she can’t be outside to get natural light. That way, she’ll be able to get adequate sunlight despite being confined indoors. A timer will allow you to put things on autopilot and also adjust light levels as-needed to mimic outdoor conditions. Lower sunlight levels will trigger hormonal responses needed to shut down egg production in fall/winter, which will then give her body time to rest, recover, and remineralize after a long period of egg production.

2. You may also want to do light plumbing on your baby pool so that you can easily drain it with an on/off valve attached to a short hose. Otherwise, you’ll be lugging a pool of poopy water out to dump in your driveway every 2-3 days and that’s going to get old quickly.

Best of luck to you and Miss Mable and please reach out if/when we can be of help.

Aaron von Frank

Hi Nicole! Glad to hear our pet duck info has been helpful for you and your family/flock. 😛

1. In place of bedding in your indoor crate, you could use an old, large towel inserted in such a way that Sir the duck (funny name btw!) can’t easily scrape it out of the way. (Without seeing your exact crate, it’s hard to give very precise advice.) We’ve used old towels in our crates for our ducks and they do perfectly well with them. Not as messy and dusty as wood flakes, but there is certainly washing involved if the duck is not diapered – ha!

2. Sounds like a perfect use case for neoprene duck shoes with rubber bottoms. Unfortunately, the vendor we used to get our duck shoes from no longer sells them, and we don’t know of anyone else who does since we haven’t had to look for them (we still have multiple pairs from years ago). Perhaps you could find a duck shoe seller on Etsy? If not, you could try to make them. Feel free to message us directly if you need closeup pictures of duck shoes to use as a template for your own DIY efforts.

Aaron von Frank

First, we’re so sorry for your loss. We know the feeling. It’s impossible to say with any degree of certainty what caused ChoonChu duck’s death without a professional necropsy/autopsy. Vomiting is usually a pretty dire sign in ducks, but the exact causes can vary. For instance, she could have eaten an object that punctured or blocked her proventriculus. While it’s possible that she ingested a dangerous pathogen in her lettuce, that would more likely have caused diarrhea rather than vomiting. Wish we could be of more help on this point.

As for duck diaper harnesses, they actually manage to keep the ducks pretty clean since the diaper inserts are nested inside the harnesses like little bowls. As long as you change out the diaper inserts fairly regularly, it’s not a problem. Nevertheless, you’ll still want to give any diaper-wearing duck a chance to swim and fully clean themselves 1-2 times per day diaper-free.

Aaron von Frank

Hi Jackie! Ugh, hate to say it but that’s a pretty extreme temperature differential and with temps that far below freezing it would likely cause some unnecessary respiratory distress for your ducks if you do it regularly. Better to visit them outdoors until temps warm up — or until they’re not going back outside into sub-freezing conditions.

Aaron von Frank

Your baby duck should be able to integrate perfectly well into your existing flock, but the process will take a bit of time AND you’ll need to take safety precautions.

You could start doing supervised introductions now so they all get to know each other. You’d want to be present 100% of the time since a duckling can be badly injured by a mature duck very quickly + your presence will help soothe the duckling, assuming it has imprinted on you. You’d also be well-served to utilize fine-mesh temporary fencing to keep the duckling totally secure/safe while still allowing physical interaction between adults and baby. You and the duckling could stay in the fencing during your visits. Do this as regularly as you can (ideally at least once per day for 20-30 minutes) as the duckling matures into nearly full size (around week 8). By that point, they all should be well-acclimated enough to each other that you could start allowing supervised visits without fencing. Closely observe to see if the new duck is being picked on or bullied. If so, allow more time before integration. If not, you could fully transition the duckling into your flock. Hope this helps and good luck!

Aaron von Frank

Hi Molly! That’s a great question and something we should probably write an in-depth article about. The short of it: what you do with your ducks when you travel is going to depend on your unique setup and resources.

For instances, in our particular situation, we pay a trustworthy teenager who lives down the street from us to come take care of them. That means:
1) Let our ducks out of their coops, feed, and water them in the morning.
2) Come again in the evening to prep their coops and put them up.

We leave our duck sitter a very detailed printed checklist for each day, and tell him exactly what time the ducks need to be let out or put up. He then texts us to let us know once he’s done so we’re not left wondering. Each “session” takes him about 10-15 minutes and we pay him $10 for each session. He’s thrilled to make $20 for 20-30 minutes of his time each day. If we hired a professional pet sitter online who had to drive to our place twice each day, we’d likely need to pay them more.

Indoor pet ducks would have different care requirements when we went out of town. Outdoor ducks who lived in a run all day would have different care requirements, etc. Regardless of your setup, you don’t want to have a situation where you going out of town:
a) puts your ducks at elevated risk of predator attack;
b) causes them to go without food or water for more than ~12 hours;
c) leaves them in unsanitary conditions.

Again, however you accomplish those three objectives is going to vary depending on your setup and resources. Hope this helps!

Aaron von Frank

Hi Cassia! If Harley the duck was the only one of her species around between hatch day and maturity, she’s probably very heavily imprinted off of you, hence her behaviors. When inviting mating, ducks will slightly put their wings out, lower themselves, and flatten their backs to make it easier for a mate to stand atop them. A human petting their backs or the back of their heads is actually sexually stimulating to a duck. Since you’re the only game in town, it’s unlikely that her behavior is going to change.

For the record, our Welsh Harlequin females don’t seem to be too concerned about binary sexual orientations and readily mate each other as well. E.g. you can get all-female ducklings if you want, when the time is right. If you get ducklings, you’ll need to be very careful trying to integrate them into Harley’s life because she’s likely going to try to attack them at first. So keep them separated by caging in the beginning days/weeks TBD and let her see the ducklings but don’t let her access them. Not sure when you’ll be able to give her full access to them – hopefully, you’ll be able to tell when the time is right (if at all). However, once the ducklings are feathered in at around ~6 weeks, they should all integrate well without risk of attacks/injury so long as they’ve had regular exposure to each other in the weeks prior. Until then, you’ll need to plan to be the love of Harley’s life. Sorry! ;P

Aaron von Frank

Glad to hear this info was helpful for you and your indoor pet ducks, Joan! It’s not possible to spoil a duck too much, according to ducks. We’re taking ours car, boat, and furniture shopping as soon as the pandemic is over. One of them also has her eyes on a lakefront estate.

Aaron von Frank

Hi Serina! ~30 degrees F temperature differential is about as much as you’d want to push it. That may not be tenable in North Dakota, so you may need to plan on outdoor ducks during the cold months and perhaps do your indoor pet duck adventures during the summer months.

Aaron von Frank

So sorry you’re going through this, Shanna! Thanks for doing what you’re doing to try to help your duckling. We don’t have any personal experience treating wry neck in ducks, but are familiar with the condition. For your and your duck’s sake, hopefully her condition was caused by environmental factors such as poor nutrition, rather than being genetic. That way, you’ll have a better likelihood of treating it. The main thing is to really boost Vitamin E levels in her diet until she (hopefully) improves. You can do that by putting things like sunflower seeds and leafy greens in the blended food you’re providing her. There are other good natural, food- and herb-based sources of Vitamin E as well. Also, do be sure you’re using non-medicated food AND you’re using waterfowl-specific food since ducklings/ducks have different dietary needs than chicks/chickens. Fingers crossed that with your good care, your duck will show signs of recovering from wry neck within the next few weeks. Until then, you’ll unfortunately need to keep her separated from the rest of your flock to prevent her from being injured. Last thing: have you contacted the seller to let them know the problems you had with your ducklings?