How long can a duckling be on starter for?

[melissamerry]

Hi everyone,

I'm a first time duck mama and I've been reading an awful lot about angel wing and a too high protein diet for ducks and now I'm worried. I found a feed store and they had Mazuri Starter for waterfowl but the tag said "ude protein not less than 20%" and I asked the sales ma'am if that was too high for 4 week old ducklings. I thought I had read that it should be 14-18% to avoid angel wing and she very rudely answered that I don't know how to properly to raise ducks . Since she was correct that I am new to this I didn't argue and bought the stuff.

Its been a week now and I don't know if I'm imagining a tweak in their wings because I'm super worried, or if they actually are developing angel wing. So i guess my question is am I feeding my babies the right stuff?

 

[Paigej]

I'm sorry, I don't know much about angel wing but I fed my ducklings a starter food until they were 2 weeks old then I switched them to a grower food (Purina Flock Raiser). Their current food has 20% protein too. Their starter food (chick starter) was actually 22% protein but I cut it with rolled oats to lower the protein level a bit. They're currently 5 weeks old.

I hope someone will come by to answer your angel wing question.

 

[Marty1876]

I feed my ducklings starter for 8 weeks, they grow very quickly in that time and really need the extra protein. After that, I'd move to starter grower. Remember, duckling do 90% of their growing in the first 8 weeks, where it takes most chickens 5 monthes to get this physical size.

As for the rude feed store lady

She is there to assist and educatate, not criticise. A true educator will tell you the truth in a kind way, as their knowledge is useless without the student.

 

[duckluck]

I use the starter on my Call babies until 10 days, at which time I start weaning them over onto grower ground into a finer crumble. Personally I think a person is going to see some angel wing no matter what they do if they raise enough ducks, and in my experience some lines seem more prone to it than others. Once you are sure they are angel winged, and I don't panic right away at the sight of a feather starting to grow awry because sometimes they have tufts that just stick out as part of growing, but when I see a definite angle out that is when I tape them, usually for about a week. Not fun but has to be done or they will grow deformed. The sooner you get to it, the better your success should be.

 

[Amiga]

At about two weeks I started shifting over from starter to grower.

By the way, the only starter I could get was 27% protein, so I took Holderread's advice and added chopped up rolled oats (not instant) to get the %age down to the target for ducklings. Then I started mixing in grower, ground up a bit at first, in with the starter to slowly move them over to all grower. That way we used up the starter crumbles, too.

Angel wing is something about which there are a number of opinions. It does seem to just happen sometimes in spite of our efforts. Be careful if you need to tape or wrap the wings. They need good circulation while their wings are taped or wrapped.

 

[melissamerry]

Thanks for everyone's help! I'm going to add in rolled oats and see if that makes any difference.