Sometimes, when you stroll through park you might find an abandoned duckling on the park pond. After hatching most wild ducklings will follow their duck’s mother to feeding ground on the pond, however not every duckling manage to follow their duck mother as some of the ducklings might get lost and left behind. That is why there is sometimes an abandoned duckling without mother, frightened with everything they see, starve, and couldn’t do anything without their mother. If you leave them, the duckling won’t survive for more than 24 hours with the dangers of the outside world. It is up to you to find their mother, find an experienced person to take care of it, or you can just take care of that abandoned duckling by yourself.
It isn’t easy to take care of abandoned duckling without its mother by yourself, especially if you don’t have any experience in taking care of ducks. Well, we are here to guide you right away on how to take care of abandoned ducks, especially on how to feed them correctly until they are big enough to search for foods for themselves. So, how to feed baby duck without its mother until they are big enough for us to release or keep it as a pet? We are going to answer it step by step, so make sure to read out here right away. Now, without any needs for more delay let’s start our discussion on how to feed abandoned duck without its duck mother by yourself, a do it yourself steps on how to take care of abandoned baby duck.
Steps on how you should feed rescued baby duck you found without its mother
After ducks hatched, they will follow their mama duck to feeding grounds so they will learn on how to eat, what to eat, and also mama duck will waterproof their baby duck. Within the first hours after hatching, baby duck won’t require to eat since they still got their nutrition from dangling yolk sac on their chest. After the yolk sac is empty, they will now starting to feel hungry and need foods to eat.
Naturally, mama duck will feed their newly born baby with small crustaceans, ducks, and small wild worm from a pond. Mama duck also waterproofs their baby within the very first hours of ducklings, so no wonder you can see baby duckling can swim not long after they’re hatched. However, there is some case that baby duck is abandoned and left behind by their mother, so you can sometimes found an abandoned duckling without its mother.
When feeding the baby duck, you should see and consider how old the baby duck you found. If you found newly hatch baby duck that is on their first 24 hours, you need to feed them differently from 1 – 3 weeks ducklings. So, how we can feed rescued baby duck without its mother, and how we should give them to eat during their baby phase?
- If you found baby duck under 3 days old
You should know, that newly hatch baby duck is very fragile, and without care from its mother, they can’t survive much longer. The longest they can survive alone in the outside world without its mother is not longer than 48 hours. If you found any abandoned baby duck that has been hatched a while ago, and you can’t find its mother, then it is up to you to take care of it.
After giving them shelters to sleep, and a warm place, you also need to give them nutritious food. Just as we mentioned earlier, the baby duck will have their yolk sac within first hours after they hatch to feed them the nutrition they will need. So, you don’t need to feed them if you see they still have their yolk sac dangling around in their body. After a while, yolk sac will be depleted, and now you need to feed them right away.
You can feed baby ducks with dried mealworms, crushed hardboiled egg, and you can also give them chopped oats. Make sure you chop it finely and give foods that are soft enough for them to eat, and small for them to digest. Provides them with water filled with small pebbles. Why we should fill the water with pebbles? This is to prevent baby ducks to jump into the water, and make themselves wet. Without it mama duck, duck won’t have any waterproofing for themselves, so you need to make sure to keep them dry, warm and fluffy.
- Food for a baby duck within 3 days to 3 weeks
After growing for at least 3 days, your ducklings now can eat starter crumbs, formulated for ducks to grow. This starter crumbs contain all of the nutrition ducklings need and they are also contain a lot of protein that will boost their growth. Starter crumb is the best foods you can give for ducklings so they can grow fast and healthy. You can get starter crumbs from the local poultry supply shop.
Keep it in mind, that starter crumb for ducklings is different from starter crumbs for chicks. They contain a very different type of nutrition, as chick and duck have different nutritional needs. Make sure you don’t feed your ducklings with chicken starter crumb or else they will have growth deficiency.
If you can’t find any starter crumb near your house, you can still use dried mealworms. You can also give them soft whole wheat breadcrumb, mixed up with pellets. Make sure to soften the crumb first before giving them to your ducklings.
- Food for ducklings within 3 weeks to 6 weeks
Now, you can start to change your duckling diets with breadcrumb. At first, try to mix up breadcrumb with their old diets like starter crumb, then slowly change their diets with whole wheat breadcrumb, Until they’re satisfied and adjusted in eating breadcrumb.
You can also let them loose on the pond so they can learn how to search for food for themselves. This is needed if you plan on releasing the duck.
That’s it after your duck is adjusted in eating breadcrumb and can learn to feed themselves, then you don’t need to worry too much about their diets. So, did our article on how to feed baby duck without its mother help you? If yes leave a like and comments to share your opinion about ducklings care and many more.