Raising an orphaned wood duck

[StarCreekFarm]

If I were a duckling I'd leave home for that kind of luxe treatment !

 

[Miss Lydia]

Precious baby.

Sounds like you have it all covered. Only thing I would add is make the bath water nice and warm .
Do you plan on keeping the lil one or turning it over to wild life rehabber? Not sure if you'll ever be able to let it go unless it's flies off on it's own when it gets old enough. That might be the thing to do give it the option.

 

[itsasmallfarm]

awesome, i would recommend getting the duck a friend. (if you can legally keep birds that is)

 

[Herdcutter]

That is the cutest baby hatchling I've seen in the last 24hrs. Congrats on becoming psudo-wood duck family.

 

[iWOODDUCKifiwereu]

Precious baby.

Sounds like you have it all covered. Only thing I would add is make the bath water nice and warm .
Do you plan on keeping the lil one or turning it over to wild life rehabber? Not sure if you'll ever be able to let it go unless it's flies off on it's own when it gets old enough. That might be the thing to do give it the option.

Yeah, I think that's probably the route we'll take....give it the option as it has imprinted on us.

 

[iWOODDUCKifiwereu]

This past weekend we upgraded from the brooder to a larger home. It is still heated like the brooder, but is much larger and allows for a standard, small-sized feeder and water dispenser, 2" deep pan of water with rocks in it, and all the same items from the original brooder. Besides size, the main difference between this brooder and the other is that this can quickly be converted to an outside home for the duckling once it gets bigger. It's actually a large, hard plastic deck box used to hold pool items in it. All I did was cut an opening in the lid of the box about half the size of the lid and cover it with aluminum screen to allow air flow into the box and place the drop light over it to maintain a temperature of about 80 just above that area of the box.

Once the box is moved outside, the contents of the box can be removed along with the drop light to allow for it to become a "duck house" primarily for the ducks to get inside when it's cooler at night. At this point I'll cut an opening in the side of the box to allow the duck to get in and out of it on it's own and fence in an area around it to keep it safe.