Are you considering raising ducks? Make sure you read these 11 reasons why you should NOT raise ducks before you dive in!
Why we’re trying to talk you out of raising ducks
We’re duck fanatics who’ve raised ducks for over a decade. We’ve also helped countless other families successfully raise ducks. So why are we trying to talk you out of raising ducks in this article?
Because we want you to be well-prepared, committed duck parents with a clear-headed notion of what’s involved with raising ducks BEFORE you get them. Here’s why:
- We’ve seen countless abandoned ducks dumped at nearby ponds and lakes once their human families decide ducks are too much responsibility. (Virtually all abandoned ducks will die a terrible death in the wild because they don’t know how to fend for themselves or find food — and they’re flightless.)
- Our area waterfowl rescue operations are full of domestic ducks who have been injured or made sick due to human neglect and/or abandonment. (See our interview with Carolina Waterfowl Rescue founder, Jennifer Gordon.)
- We see and hear about people who keep their ducks in horrid conditions, and their ducks end up needlessly suffering, sick, or dead as a result.
- We see and hear about people who didn’t properly prepare for having backyard ducks, so their ducks end up falling prey to predators (even in cities and highly urbanized areas).
These members of our flock came from Carolina Waterfowl Rescue after being abandoned by their previous owners.
Yes, ducklings and ducks are adorable and can be wonderful pets. Yes, they produce great eggs. From the outside, getting ducks might seem like a wonderful idea.
The problem is, many new duck parents haven’t properly considered the costs, knowledge, planning, and daily responsibility that goes along with being good duck parents. We don’t want you to make the same mistake!
11 reasons you should not get ducks
Below is a rundown of what’s involved and what you can expect if you get ducks — and why you might NOT want to get them in the first place. If you still want to get ducks AFTER you know what’s involved with being responsible duck parents, then carry on!
1. Adult ducks require a lot of specialized care.
If you’re thinking you can just set your ducks free to take care of themselves, think again. Ducklings and ducks require a lot of care such as:
A. Ducks have to be put up in a secure location/coop at night and let out in the morning.
Ducks don’t roost like chickens, but they still need a safe, secure house/coop with bedding that gets topped up regularly to prevent foot injuries caused from standing in their own waste.
A well-designed coop and/or run is also essential for keeping your ducks safe from predators. Note: You can keep ducks permanently in a secured run for fail-safe security.
See our articles:
B. Ducks need quality duck/waterfowl-specific feed and fresh drinking water provided daily.
Ducks (and especially ducklings) have specialized nutritional needs. Ideally, you can also provide them with fresh produce daily or at least a few times per week such as chopped lettuce, kale, tomatoes, peas, etc.
More on this topic in #7 below!
C. Ducks need water to swim in for optimal health and happiness.
Ducks take water baths, chickens take dust baths. Your adult ducks will at least need access to a kiddie pool to swim in if you want them to be their happiest, healthiest selves. Or you might consider building a self-cleaning backyard duck pond using our design.
Our ducks taking a swim on a snowy morning in their self-cleaning backyard pond. You don’t have to go to these lengths to provide your ducks with water to clean and play in, but ducks do need a daily water source for optimal health.
Do note that a pre-existing wild pond on your property also contains wild animals that can and will eat ducklings and adult ducks alike. Snapping turtles and birds of prey kill adult ducks on ponds. And countless animals — from largemouth bass to snakes to turtles — will also eat ducklings.
Having an existing pond on your property for your future ducks may not be an asset — or something that you’ll want to allow your ducks to have access to without putting protective systems in place first.
2. Baby ducklings require even more care than adult ducks.
Ducklings are like human babies in that they require far more care than adults. Without proper food, warmth, shelter, and living conditions, they’ll become sick, injured, or die.
Ducklings might be the cutest animals in the world, but they’re also among the most vulnerable, requiring lots of care and protection from their adult duck or human parents.
If you want to get ducklings, plan for a huge daily time commitment and lots of mess during the ~8 weeks it takes them to reach adult size.
(See: Step-by-step guide to raising ducklings.)
3. Most vets aren’t AVIAN vets.
Even under the best care, ducks will occasionally get sick or injured, sometimes requiring medical care. (The same is true for any other pet or animal.)
Over the years, we’ve learned how to identify and treat common duck medical problems. If you raise ducks, you’ll probably end up doing the same — see our duck healthcare guide.
However, if a duck is suffering from a medical problem that: a) you can’t identify, and/or b) is beyond what you can effectively or humanely treat at home, then they need to be brought to a vet immediately.
However, most vets are NOT avian vets, e.g. vets specifically trained to treat birds. They likely know a lot about common pets like cats and dogs, but they don’t have a high degree of medical knowledge/training about birds (including ducks).
Ideally, you can find an avian vet in your area before you get ducks using the AAV.org’s avian vet finder. If you happen to live anywhere near Greenville-Spartanburg in South Carolina, we highly recommend our duck vet, Dr. Hurlbert at Healthpointe Vet Clinic in Duncan, SC.
4. You can’t get just one duck.
Ducks are highly social creatures who need other ducks around to feel happy and safe. That’s why it’s a bad idea to get only one duck.
“Where’s my flock?!” A single duck is not a happy duck! Ducks are highly social animals that need other ducks around to feel safe and happy.
How many ducks should you get? It depends, but we recommend starting small, with only a few ducks. Once you gain experience, you can get more ducks.
Other important considerations we answer elsewhere:
5. If you don’t properly prepare in advance, your ducks will be killed by predators.
Ducks are indeed “sitting ducks” to virtually all predators. Neighborhood dogs, large cats, raccoons, possums, hawks, owls, coyotes, bobcats, ferrets… There is a long list of animals who want to and will eat your ducks — if allowed the opportunity.
Think living in a suburban or urban environment will keep your ducks safe? Nope. These environments are even more densely populated by predators like raccoons than rural environments, sometimes by a factor of 5-to-1. We’ve had plenty of friends find this out the hard way.
In fact, one of our friends who lives a mile from downtown Greenville, SC, got three large geese to help protect her flock of ducks from raccoons. We’ll leave out the grisly details, but after a few raccoon attacks (including daytime attacks), she ended up with only one goose and a few less ducks.
Our home is surrounded by predators, but we’ve never lost a duck to predation (knock on wood) in the many years we’ve been duck parents — and we don’t want you to either.
See: 17 tips to keep your ducks safe from predators.
6. Ducks can live for a long time.
Want to get a pet that only lives for a couple years while your kids are young? Don’t get ducks! Get hamsters.
Domesticated ducks can live for a long time. While the lifespan of a lucky wild Mallard is about 5 years, a domestic Mallard-derived duck can live for 10-20 years. General rules:
- smaller breeds live longer than larger breeds;
- females of breeds that lay fewer eggs live longer than females of high-producing breeds;
- males live longer than females within the same breed since their bodies are not taxed by reproduction.
What’s the upper limit? We’ve seen credible reports of domestic ducks living up to 20 years old. We have ducks in our flock who are over a decade old and still going strong.
On the flip side of this equation, be prepared for you and your family to fall in love with your ducks and be completely heartbroken when you lose a duck you love. Also consider having a succession plan if something happens to you, and your ducks need a new home.
Svetlana the duck enjoying kisses from The Tyrant. Svetlana was the most sociable and intelligent duck we’ve ever known. Losing her was one of the hardest things we’ve ever endured.
7. Ducklings and ducks have specialized dietary needs.
Feed a duckling chicken/chick food and it will likely end up crippled due to lack of niacin. Adult ducks also have different macronutrient requirements than adult chickens.
Our ducks get to eat insects, slugs, worms, and greens when we let them out to forage our gardens in the evenings. However, we still make sure they get waterfowl-specific food and supplements to optimize their health.
Further reading on this topic:
8. You will NOT save money by getting ducks or producing your own duck eggs.
Yes, duck eggs are amazingly delicious and more nutritious than chicken eggs. Yes, duck eggs are also expensive at the store (assuming you can find them).
However, if your main reason for getting backyard ducks is to save money on duck eggs, please do NOT get ducks. Why? Because you won’t save money.
We think you should come to this realization before you get ducks rather than after so that you’re less likely to abandon the project — and your ducks.
Go ahead, give me your credit card. What’s the worst that could happen?
Typical commercial egg production operations are designed for maximum efficiency: warehouse living environment, bulk duck feed prices, rapid culling of sick or older birds, etc. They don’t give their ducks names, give them optimal veterinary care, and consider them pets/family members. That’s not what they’re designed for.
Instead of trying to produce the cheapest possible duck eggs from your flock, aim to provide your ducks with the highest quality of life and enjoy the highest quality eggs as a happy byproduct. (We like to say our pets make our breakfast.)
However, after building your duck coop or a single trip to your avian vet, you’ll quickly realize duck ownership is not going to produce a good return on investment (ROI) relative to the financial value of the eggs your ducks produce. (More on duck egg economics, er, egg-onomics?)
9. Not all duck breeds are created equal.
Each duck breed has different attributes. Some produce more eggs. Some are better foragers. Some have a calmer temperament and make better pets…
Depending on which duck attributes are most important to you and your family, you should pay careful attention to the breed(s) of duck you get to make sure you get the best match. We started with Welsh Harlequin ducks because they were a great fit for us, but there are lots of other great breeds out there to choose from for your first ducks. (Today, we have six breeds.)
Jackson, one of our Welsh Harlequins and also one of the sweetest ducks we’ve ever had. She enjoyed bill pets, belly pets, flipper rubs, head scratches, and other human affections and was rewarded with her favorite treat (chunks of tomatoes) afterwards. She lived to be ten years old.
Check out our duck breed comparison article to help you calculate a numerical score to impartially determine the breed(s) that best fit your needs and wants.
10. Ducks are a gateway drug to more ducks.
Ducks are hilarious, adorable, quirky clowns that you’re very likely to fall head-over-flippers in love with. The mental health professionals in our family may not concur, but we suspect ducks may well become an undiagnosed addiction.
Your first thoughts in the morning will be about ducks. You’ll think about ducks throughout the day, and again before you go to sleep.
Depending on the severity of your addiction, you may find yourself abandoning all reason and having diapered ducks rampaging through your house, tormenting your other pets, sleeping in your bed at night, and destroying any chance you once had of a normal social life. (“Sorry I can’t go this weekend because our duck sitter isn’t available.”)
There is no hope and no treatment should this become your fate. All you can do is connect with other duck addicts on social media, at which point you’ll be jealous of people who have even more ducks than you do. So before you decide to experiment with your first ducks, you should be warned that ducks are a gateway drug to more ducks for many people who try them, even if you don’t inhale.
Related:
11. You may not be able to legally own ducks where you live.
Obviously, all the other points mentioned above are rendered moot if you can not legally own ducks in the first place. For instance, your Homeowner Association (HOA) may have restrictions against having backyard poultry. Or your municipal/city regulations may have poultry restrictions.
For instance, people living within the city limits of Greenville, SC, where we live, can not have more than seven poultry in their yard. (Thankfully, we live outside of the city limits!)
This is something you need to check into BEFORE you get ducks. Otherwise, you might be legally forced to re-home them, which will be a painful and challenging process.
You won’t save money on eggs, your (human) social life will suffer, and you’ll have a lot of extra responsibilities for many years to come. Sold on ducks yet? Yay! You’re our kind of people.
Next step: check out our beginner’s guide to raising ducks.
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Want to see a video summary of this article? Check out our Google Web Story about things you should know BEFORE you raise ducks… or browse the latest and greatest duck articles on Tyrant Farms!
16 Comments
Joe psotka
October 21, 2023 at 8:26 amAccording to Andrew Moore, lewis and Clark’s expedition had DRIED PAWPAWs and loved them.; so too the Iroquois. Apparently they dried them with lye or ash. So, there may be a way to remove the poisons from dried fruit. Any ideas?
Aaron von Frank
October 21, 2023 at 9:40 amPerhaps lye and/or hardwood ash would bind whatever toxins in oxidized pawpaw fruit causes GI distress. Personally, it’s just not worth it to us to find out since we’re perfectly happy just eating small amounts of the fresh, raw fruit when it’s in season (and fresh frozen fruit sporadically throughout the year). In addition to pawpaw fruit’s acute toxicity issues, we’re also not too keen on eating large quantities of something that can cause long-term neurodegenerative disease. Another concerning anecdote from this year: we have family a few hours away who made a slushy with their fresh, ripe home-grown pawpaws. Thinking them delicious (which they are), each of the three people who drank the slushy consumed about 1.5 cups of fresh pawpaw pulp. They all spent half of the next day on the toilet. Thankfully, there were three toilets available in their house.
Amy Salva
September 4, 2023 at 6:41 pmHoping to distill some paw paw fruit from our backyard. Any thoughts? We have done pear and apple with success. I’m assuming we should only use ripe fruit?
Aaron von Frank
September 5, 2023 at 5:32 pmIf you’re going to make spirits with pawpaw fruit, we’d definitely recommend only using ripe fruit. There’s actually no circumstance under which we’d recommend consuming unripe or under-ripe pawpaw fruit either. For reasons we detail in the article, pawpaw is a fruit we now only eat raw and in moderation. We’d be hesitant to cook or distill it due to the potential for GI distress – if not our own, for other people who may be sensitive. We did have some friends who made a really good pawpaw beer one time.
Chip
October 15, 2022 at 10:10 amI have two different paw-paw trees planted, both provide more than enough fruits every year. I need to know how to prepare unripe paw=paws for eating, if doable.
Aaron von Frank
October 17, 2022 at 10:29 amThe flavor and texture of unripe pawpaws render them inedible. If you harvest them within 2-3 days of when they’d naturally ripen on the tree you can pick them early and let them ripen on the counter. However, if you pick unripe pawpaws any earlier than that time window, they will not ripen off the tree no matter how long you let them sit. We’ve come to that conclusion based on experimentation with lots of different pawpaw fruit across lots of different trees.
Bill & Debbie Malone
September 18, 2022 at 3:04 pmJust a note, we live in Southern Indiana & have tons of Paw Paw trees in our woods. Just picked up about 60 fruits. The woods smell so wonderful as the fruit bears a lovely fragrance.
Gerry Jaworski
August 3, 2022 at 11:05 amA bird dropped seeds apparently. I’m in NW Ohio and this gorgeous looking southern tree brings in at least 50 paw paw fruit. Second year they’ve grown.
Aaron von Frank
August 3, 2022 at 11:34 amLucky you! Given the size of pawpaw seeds, it was most likely a mammal (such as a raccoon, possum, or skunk) who brought pawpaw seeds to your yard via their scat. Birds might peck at pawpaw fruit, but they wouldn’t be able to eat the seeds.
jakohar97
July 15, 2022 at 3:01 pmVery interesting article, I love these things. I enjoy them fresh and have also had jams made from them -delicious! However, when I tried to freeze them they tasted pretty bad. Any ideas why?
Aaron von Frank
July 16, 2022 at 7:36 amNo matter what you do, frozen fruit (including pawpaw fruit) usually doesn’t taste as good as fresh because of the cellular damage that happens during freezing. This effect is made much worse if there’s freezer burn and/or if the fruit is frozen for multiple years prior to consumption. Here are a few things that will help ensure the best possible flavor of frozen pawpaw and other fruit:
1) Use freezer bags instead of standard ziplocks bags. (Or use silicone bags if you want a plastic alternative.)
2) Vacuum seal your bags before putting them in your freezer. You can buy devices for this, but I just do it by sealing all but the far corner of a ziplock then sucking the air out with my mouth before quickly sealing the remaining section shut.
3) Eat your frozen fruit within months or no more than a year.
Hope this helps!
jakohar97
July 19, 2022 at 11:34 pmThank you for the advice!
Elaine
September 26, 2021 at 1:07 pmWill paw paw trees grow in California (Northern)?
Aaron von Frank
September 27, 2021 at 12:30 pmHi Elaine! Pawpaws should do ok in northern California since you have higher humidity, but probably not in southern California where it’s hotter and dryer. What I don’t know about your area is how many winter chill hours you average. Pawpaws generally require a minimum of 400 chill hours/sub-freezing winter temps while they’re dormant in order to produce fruit. There is a lot of pawpaw breeding work going on around the country, so perhaps you could search for: a) pawpaws bred for west coast conditions, and b) pawpaws with lower chill hour requirements. That way, you can be sure to get a cultivar(s) ideally suited to your location. Hope this helps!
Brandie Gruenewald
September 23, 2021 at 7:58 pmThis article is so helpful. I came across pawpaw last year on a hike by my house. I was like what the heck is this then did my research. By that time, they were all brown and on the ground being eaten by the forest floor. So I marked my calendar for Sept 2021 and here we are! I foraged about 10 from the same park and am using your guide to prepare them as we speak! Thank you so much for the information and inspiration!
Aaron von Frank
September 24, 2021 at 12:41 pmOoh, lucky you! Nice to have a wild pawpaw patch near your house. Glad this article was helpful and hope you get to enjoy some pawpaw fruit this year. It’s absolutely delicious. Do keep in mind that there can be some variability between pawpaw ripening time from year to year depending on the weather (example: ours was 3-4 weeks later this year than last year). Can’t hurt to check your spot(s) a little early each year to see how they’re coming along and make sure you don’t miss them. Give those pawpaw trees a good shake and cover your head!