How to Raise a Duck

Get your brother/sister to go find you an incubator. If you don't have a brother/sister, any neighborhood kid will do. Chances are they won't know where to look though, so finally you will have to look yourself. At least you will have procrastinated already and gotten in over with. I searched and what do you know, I found an incubator on Ebay. My dad believes you can get an incubator from the feed store also, he is probably right. They can get a little expensive so make sure you have a little cash handy.

Before you go any further, you will need duck eggs. An online search for duck eggs or a local farm, are places where you can find duck eggs.(Let incubator run for at least one day to make sure it stays at the right temperature (99.5 degrees farenheit) before putting eggs in, once in make sure they are out of the air vent path. If you don't have an automatic turner, you have to manually stick your hand in the incubator and turn the eggs three times a day. 28-35 days after you figure out how to work your incubator your eggs will have hopefully hatched, three days before you think they are going to hatch, that would be the 25th day or so, make sure you spray your eggs with water to make sure the ducks can get out.)

Next you will need a cage. My dad and I personally went down to home depot and could find materials to build a nice cage for under $30. You are looking for wood and (metal) chicken wire (with help from a staple gun, hammer, and nails). Make sure the chicken wire holes aren't too big because you DO NOT want the duck's head to get stuck in the holes. There needs to be a top to the cage, so that other animals can not get in. If possible the top needs to have a lock or clasp, to assure that raccoons and other such animals are not a problem. We have our cage on blocks so it will fertilize the lawn instead of trying to change the bedding twice daily. We usually leave a towel in the cage (away from the water bowl) so it can snuggle up if need be.

(Disregard the clothespin on the cage, sometimes if it gets too cold I personally think I need to put a sheet over the cage so he doesn't freeze to death, but I have never heard of anyone else doing this. I use the clothespins to make sure the sheet stays down securely.)

A water dish is always nice. For the first week or so make sure it is pretty shallow, after that you can work your way up to a bigger bowl. Food is also a necessity, you can get the food from your local feed store.  I feed my duck, several times a day since it insists on making a mess, resulting in half the food out of the cage anyways.

When the duck is a baby (AKA a duckling) a light/heat source should be placed in the cage. Once it is an adult you can take the light out of the cage but then the duck can't snack on bugs as much.

Finally invest in a kiddie pool. Ducks love water! At least once a day make sure the duck gets a chance to go swimming.

After you have the first duck set up and happy, you might as well use that really neat incubator to have more ducks, after all you already have all the stuff (and they're super cute). Just remember the more ducks, the more space the ducks are going to need, so make sure the cage is big enough. And more ducks also mean more food and water so don't be stingy. You can also have ducks and chickens at the same time (the chickens only take 21 days in the incubator).

Good luck! and feel free to message me with any questions.