Raising Baby Ducks - Common Questions

It's now been more than two weeks since we received our batch of 41 khaki campbell ducklings to raise in our brooder on our small duck farm. I try to give answers to common questions about raising baby ducks and our plans for the future. These little ducks are growing up so quick!

About Gold Shaw Farm: Gold Shaw Farm is more of a farm-in-progress than an honest-to-goodness farm. Our dream is that someday we are able to transform our 150+ acre parcel of land into a regenerative and productive homestead and farm.

[WatermelonLover]

Hand rearing one duckling versus 40 ducklings in a brooder makes a big difference in terms of bonding.

[RedQueenOfficial]

Ducks are ones of the cutest animals 😍

[williamj.stilianessis]

"Can they come inside?" Great answer and spot on. I recall reading that homesteaders from the turn of the 19th century often built the barn first because "you can always live in the barn but you don't want the animals in the house." I'm sorry I can't find the book to cite the quote but I remember it well, and how true.

[christinaj.]

Interesting 🤔 our khaki campbells have been some of our most affectionate ducks . They definitely thought of me as a “momma” duck and would tuck under my hand like a momma ducks wing + followed me + the kids everywhere. I’ve never heard of them as a more skittish breed especially compared with our Indian runners and Cayuga. That being said I believe it’s all in how you handle them and I’m sure there’s benefits

[jillmadigan]

What I learned from watching Matt McDougall hatch ducklings on his YT channel, 50 Ducks in a Hot Tub, is that the incubator and hatcher have different needs for temperature and humidity. Also, the ducks who free-ranged for most of their food produced egg shells that were easier for the 'lings to escape than those who ate mainly bagged food. He did autopsy videos on the failed eggs and assisted an heroic number of tired, struggling birds, many of whom got trapped by that white inner egg lining when it dried out and turned into what he described as shrink wrap. Very interesting.

[wally]

I found your channel 3 days ago, i Love So i’ve gone back in time to start at the beginning. It’s weird not seeing Toby yet.
Any way, you are the absolute best ever. You are beyond informative, but not annoying. And your humor is the dry, witty, and the best.
The names you’ve given some of the ducks, geese, chickens, rocks. Ron Swanson hilarious, and the murder chicken hilarious, and the aristocratic geese beyond hilarious. I Love Toby. Thank you for creating all of this content. It’s brilliant and beautiful, and i love how you are distinguishing pets vs livestock. I grew up on a farm & know what you’re saying. But there will be those that snag your heart!
Time for the next episode. 😊😊😊😊

[Caseltons]

I have 3 ducks. They’re so cute!! But one evening my ducks were in their pen but one of them made a weird sound that she never did before so I looked out of the window and there was a FOX by the pen and it was sticking its paw through so I went downstairs and scared it away.

[craftytimestation]

I'm now the owner of three Campbell ducks mostly because of your videos. females recently started laying and I almost immediately bought a cheap junk incubator and I'm about 1 weeks into my first round of eggs lol wish me luck.. right now I'm not doing organic because the pellets I don't think are but they definitely prefer just the insects they pick out of the yard and they seem to love the clover in my yard but aside from that ingredients I have to purchase in everything I use myself is personally organic i recently even made the change over in my grow room for my medical marijuana that's more about stuff than anything else

[msdragon]

I never thought about raising ducks. I started watching youre videos and you have inspired me to raise ducks and geese. I now own 28 ducks and plan on getting more. Please keep up youre videos so i can continue to learn from you.

[whitewavegsd]

Really cool to know there’s another duck raiser in my state on YouTube. When you said you received them from California, was that Metzer farm? That’s where we got our Cayuga’s and Blue Runners. Except it took close to 4 days for them to arrive. But they made it, their safe now and a great addition!

[sabrinastratton]

I just got my first 4 ducklings Sunday. They are 5 days old and sassy

[All_praiseAllah]

So true about the cowering. Mine are crazy scared no matter how much time I spend with them. My chickens warmed up a lot faster. I was able to handle them easy a lot earlier

[DD-qwzc]

A man saying I put my foot down PFFT. That duck would’ve been in my house that day.

[Akasanaesp]

The beginning of the video are exactly like my runner ducks screaming to be let down. It's worse when our separate then from the flock for more than a few hours hahahah. I had 2 injured ducks which I nursed back to health... The noise they produce...

[amandabrook]

Can you do an updated raising ducks. I just got into breeding muscovys. I've raised small amounts of ducks but not large amounts. I absolutely hate raising ducks, but love ducks themselves! I've delt with a lot of predators this winter so I'm nervous to let my ducks raise their own babies

[dwilliamson]

I just checked and somehow i had been unsubscribed! So keep an on your subcriptions people, i enjoy these videos of Gold Shaw Farm very much and had wondered why i wasn't getting any videos of these guys showing up on my feed, along with a few others. Any way i have re-subscribed and look forward to seeing some more updates of the Farm. Thanks.

[derekgold]

I love to eat happy healthy animals. You cant beat giving an animal a good life, but everyones time comes.

[farmliving]

So I took my duck, Cheese (there was a Quackers but she was taken by a fox) to a vet. She was attacked by a weasel and was in HORRIBLE shape both eyes (the corners of her eyes not the eyeballs) we slashed, big slashes through her cheeks and a HUGE bite taken out of her head. The vet was only 137 and she is 99% recovered. I used blue coat and kwik stop the day of. What is your opinion on this? You said the vet isn’t cost effective... but I respectfully disagree because the cost of the duck, heating her coop, feed, bedding, and most importantly the emotional loss would be devastating. I think 137 was a small price to save her life. I only have 6 ducks though (currently but I’m planning on adding to these once the babies are ready to go outside cheese is my only adult). So that means you don’t vaccinate them right? I didn’t either but are there benefits to vaccinating?

[MegaDavyk]

carrot greens are good greens you should have them in your salad.

[hatter]

Hawks will mess up a duck/goose easily. When I was young one of our goose pets got some horrible injuries from something one day and we had to take him to the vet. A few weeks later my dad and I happened to be nearby working when a hawk swooped in to try and finish the job. Luckily we got it off the goose before any more damage was done, but the vet said it was almost curtains for the poor dude that first time.