wheat middlings as duck feed?

[Ducktown]

I've been thinking about buying wheat middlings and using it as duck feed supplement. Since it's cheaper and has quite good nutritional value (does it?), it could be added into their regular feed. I have read that adding up to 25% of wheat middlings into duck feed works good for them. Anyone uses it and how.

I'm trying to find a way to make my ducks a proper menu.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Best way to provide a good menu is to buy feed formulated already for them. It's hard to do it on our own.

I do add wheat to my flocks diet I just mix it into their feed. You can also put some wheat into water and let them munch on it that way also. But wheat middling's on their own aren't going to provide all they need. I believe wheat middling's are actually in the feed I buy. I don't have the tag now since I opened the bag.

How are they doing? the lil one get his legs under him finally?

 

[Ducktown]

Yes, now he can walk much easier. He still likes to rest more than others (I also got 3 female ducks a week ago), but he's now completely normal and seems to be walking OK. I have a feeling he's a bit overweight though - he's always the first one that starts eating and the last one that stops. He runs towards the food just like any other duck if not faster.

We don't have any kind of commercial waterfowl or duck feeds around here. I was thinking about mixing it myself, especially during warm parts of the year, when there are lots of slugs that boost their protein intake a lot. I am now feeding them chicken finisher feed with around 18% protein and I'm adding some wheat.

 

[Miss Lydia]

That is all I can get and with a mixed flock I couldn't feed straight duck feed anyway. so I do add to my chicken feed the wheat and oregano and flax and spirulina you get the pic.

Great news about the lil one now of course we need some new updated pics of everyone.

Very hard to mix our own feed look it up on line lots of stuff they need to get a complete feed.

 

[Ducktown]

A couple of photos in this thread as well.
The black one is the small one. It doesn't look much smaller now.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Are they your dogs? I hope so because Drake can't really do too much to defend since he doesn't have teeth.
The new girls are beautiful and lil drake has turned out so pretty and looks great.

 

[Ducktown]

Yes, these are my dogs. The one that likes to interact with ducks is 4 months old. You can see his mother in the background, digging for voles when he runs towards her. She's totally uninterested in ducks, she keeps distance from them and never tries to make them run. Ducks are not really afraid of them, just cautious as they approach. They go towards bamboo, pond or duck house and then the drake starts chasing him. I'm keeping an eye on them as the dog play, because he's still young. He's out of the worst biting phase, when he tried to learn how much he can bite without hurting and luckily, he never tried that on any of the ducks. At that point, he was still somewhat cautious about them. And I was always around to intervene when he tried to approach them.

 

[Amiga]

Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks has recipes for feed, and Joybilee Farm has a blog post on mixing livestock feed yourself. Carol,Deppe has some suggestions for feeding ducks in her book, The Resilient Gardener.