Pet Ducks Blog

So what do pet ducks eat? Well, your pet duck(s) will eat… a lot. Now that answer is a bit too simple, so let’s have a closer look at a good and healthy diet for your pet ducks.

The main source of food for your ducks should be specialized food from your local pet store. Your ducks’ nutritional needs change with their age.

Young ducklings grow very (very!) fast. They need (pelleted) bird starter food from the pet store. What you need to look for is the protein level of the food. Ducklings need a lot of protein and calories, especially during the first three weeks. During that time they need a diet containing about 20% protein.

When your ducks are beyond the three-week period, they actually need less protein. Between the fourth and the fourteenth week, they need food with about 15% protein. This percentage also applies to adult pet ducks that aren’t laying. Laying ducks need a special breeder (or layer) diet, which usually has about 16-17% protein (and added nutrients like calcium).

It’s really simple: just go to your pet store, ask for duck food, and check the protein levels of the food. In addition to the pelleted food form the pet store, your ducks can also eat food like carrots, tomatoes and corn. Keep in mind however that these will be “treats”, and they should never replace the duck food from the pet store.

Maybe you sometimes went to a park to feed the wild ducks with bread. You should actually NEVER give bread to your pet ducks, because bread just doesn’t have the right nutritional value. Your pet ducks will eat it, but it isn’t healthy for them. In fact, the seeds in some bread products are actually damaging to their digestive system.

One last tip: enjoy your little ducklings while they’re small. They grow FAST (but remain cute however )

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 29th, 2009 at 1:38 pm and is filed under Duck Care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.