Can Ducks Be Left Alone

[giles98]

I have 10 week old Khaki Campbells and 4 week old pekins. They are all in an enclosed pen and run. My husband and I are wondering if the ducks can be left alone for long weekends. Typically leaving Friday afternoon and returning Sunday morning. The pen is completely enclosed top to bottom. Will they be ok. Right know we spend every night taking them in at night so obviously that wouldn't happen if we were not home.

 

[Amiga]

I would not. Too much can go wrong.

 

[giles98]

Hmm.. not sure what to do then. I would have thought since we built the house and pen to be predator proof and have had no signs of predators and good temps that they would be ok. I will have to see if I can get someone to check on them. Otherwise long weekend canceled..

 

[TLWR]

We went to Corpus Christie for a quick weekend area/house hunt to see if we wanted to transfer. Left before bright and early Friday morning and left before bright and early Sunday morning (returning home in the early afternoon).
We did this quick as in found out Thursday night we were going to CC the next morning.
Ducks and chickens were left out. Their food and water is good to go, so no issues with feeding. We had to leave them out and hope nothing came into to the yard.

All was ok. I don't expect that to always happen though.


If your pen is predator proof and no way for raccoons to reach in or dig in or climb over, I'd be ok with that.

 

[Going Quackers]

I think this would massively depend on your set-up... it would have to be 100% secure because as you said no way to put them in. ALso feed and water would have to be Well organized as ducks can choke without it and food access.

If your asking me would I? not a chance lol but then i have a massive amount here and i can guarantee you something would go wrong lol Anybody available to do a peek in at the very least?

 

[willowbirdks]

How would you manage the food and water? Mine make a huge mess of both in very little time. I'm asking because I'm genuinely interested in a solution. We'd like to go camping once or twice this summer, and it might be nice if we didn't have to pay the neighbor boy daily but maybe once over the course of the weekend...

 

[Amiga]

We have made trips since getting the ducks, and we always have someone take care of the ducks. Our setup currently requires them to be moved from the Day Pen to the Night Pen, so we need the help.

At the same time, I have seen sad stories here about the duck sitters failing miserably at their jobs, so a very well setup pen may be much better than that situation.

There are those who have cameras set up in the pens so they can monitor what is going on and call for help if needed. One person caught a bobcat milling around the pen at night.

 

[toowoombapekins]

we leave our 2 ducks in their coop (it's a fairly large coop for 2 ducks) over long weekends away.
They have a good supply of straw, water, food and protection from the sun, rain and wind.

They look after themselves fine. Although as soon as we get back home we know about it...... HONK HONK HONK HONK!!!! WACK-WACK-WACK-WACK-WACK!

 

[TLWR]

for food and water
Our food is in the first duck house, so it is covered. Food is in a 5 gallon bucket that drops into a pan below, so it will last about 10 days or more with no intervention.
Water - our ducks have a pond and a large cement mixing pan. The pan is filled and dumped every few days, more often in the summer heat.
You can hook up a hose to a timer and just have it flush out the water container for 5 mins or so and that would refresh their water - not perfectly clean, but refreshed and they'd be fine.

 

[giles98]

Thank you so much for all the information. We did find someone to take care of them for the weekend. But it does seem that they are now starting to go in and out of the duck house on their own so things might not be so much of a concern in the future. The food was what I was concerned with because my ducks eat like they have never had a meal each time they are fed.