Baby Birds—Getting Started with Chicks and Ducklings

In Connecticut where I live there is a six bird minimum purchase. Someone told me this is to prevent people from feeding chicks to snakes, but I’m not sure of the validity of this statement. Regardless of the reason, when purchasing chicks or ducklings, expect to buy a combination of six or more. To make it easy on yourself, have the following all set up before bringing your little darlings home:

  • container: cardboard got wrecked within the week—those ducks like to play with the water!—so I switched to an easier to clean Rubbermaid bin, and this year with only ducklings, I bought a cage made for rabbits to keep them on a wire floor instead of running around in their own mess
  • metal heat lamp with red 250 watt bulb (I read that a red bulb keeps the chicks' pecking at each other down, and have had no problems with this myself)
  • thermometer to be sure you're keeping the chicks at 90 degrees F (and decreasing 5 degrees a week by moving the light source farther away)
  • chick feeder with enough room for a hole for each chick (they poke their heads through little holes to eat), a little plate/bowl is great for ducklings because they like a little water mixed it, but chicks will poop in it
  • chick feed (should be finely ground and powdery... the first brand I bought was like Grape Nuts and they didn't really eat it) IMPORTANT: ducklings should NOT eat medicated chick food
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  • "chick gatorade"—my friend Rita M. gives her babies this for the first week. It’s a homemade concoction of a teaspoon of karo syrup or unsulphured molasses and a pinch of salt for each pint of water. She says that if chicks make it the first three days their chances are good.
  • a poultry waterer:  A bowl of water will not work because chicks will drown themselves and ducklings shouldn’t have free access to swim until they have their adult feathers.
  • bedding—start off with newspapers, but shavings are more absorbent when they’re old enough not to eat them
  • scoops (to dig food and shavings out of their bags)—can be a purchased scoop or something as simple as a red party cup
  • disposable rubber gloves are a good solution to dealing with chicken/duck poop. I started out trying to scoop it or pick it up with a paper towel, but it's just easier to put on a glove and scrape up the top layer of shavings twice a day. I put the used stuff in a junk box and dump it on the compost pile. By the way, they stink even if you clean the bin daily… especially those ducks!!! So, by the end of the 5-6 week indoor period, you’ll be glad to have them outside in the fresh air.

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