Where do you source your Ducks/Ducklings?

Where do you source your Ducklings?

Do you purchase them online and have them shipped to your house?

Do you incubate eggs?

Do you have a local duck wrangler who you purchase from?

I'd love to know where ya'll get your ducks! Please consider sharing your process.

Please check out the Permie's Critter Breeder Review Grid for existing reviews on providers of different animals including Ducks!

We've purchased ducklings (as well as chicks, muscovy ducklings, quail, & turkey poults) through a few hatcheries (including a batch of muscovy ducklings, this year). Last year, we were given 16 ducklings plus their 2 mamas by a friend, then purchased another 5 adults from her. Very early, this spring, another friend decided to get out of muscovys, and gave us a pair of hens & a drake - all lovely piebalds. The hens are setting, now, as is one of the now-grown gifted ducklings, from the first friend. We tried incubating quail, but that didn't go well for us, at all.

I do not have ducks, but funny enough I know a woman who raises them that is local. I found her through Tik-Tok! She has a lovely goose who has angel wing and posts about him from time to time which caught my attention. Sometimes it is a very small world!

I have at times found local breeders that I trust and like but I'm not interested in "barnyard mix" types. Typically I'd start by knowing what breed I want. Going to The Livestock Conservancy's page and looking at breeders in their directory for that breed is often a good start for me. When I was on FB, I LOVED the breed specific pages or groups (obviously not enough to stay) and found good resources and contacts through them.

I'm considering Metzer Farms: https://www.metzerfarms.com/index.html

They did an interview with, I think it was Mother Earth news. I've bought Ducks this year and things are going well.

We've ordered ducklings from Metzer before and it went pretty well. I try to avoid day-olds in the mail because of the stress and problems all around. If you are interested in a big hatchery and have a feed store nearby, you can ask where they source theirs from (if they sell chicks, they often will sell poults and ducklings and goslings on order too). Then you avoid some of the stress of shipping to you, the DOA's, pasty butts, etc. I find quality is mixed/lower than local breeders but it is easier than the mail.

There are so many options when it comes to sourcing ducks! I have a ton of information on this in chapter three of my book. I have had ducks from local breeders, hatcheries, farm stores, and even hatched my own eggs. There are pros and cons with every option. I think there are a lot of benefits to choosing a local breeder, since they can guide you and answer questions about their specific genetic lines as well as how the breed handles the weather in your area.

I would hazard a guess and say that our ducks were obtained a little outside the norm.  We own about 10 acres at the NE corner of Lutz Road ( a very busy thoroughfare) and Fairchild Road (a back country road) in the lower SW corner of Michigan.  Early last spring,  I was cutting up some logs in the pasture that we have when an overloaded pickup truck zipped by on Lutz Road traveling close to 70 m.p.h.  A small box on the top of a bunch of others came flying off and landed in the middle of the road.  Of course the truck never paused and was soon out of sight.
    After a few minutes of watching traffic dodge the box, I wandered over to take the box out of the road.  What a surprise I received when I heard funny little noises coming from the box. Now, you must understand that the box was just a regular box from the supermarket.  (If I recall correctly, it was for mayonnaise type salad dressing. ) Getting back to the story; I placed the box upon a log and opened it up.  I received the surprise of my life when I saw baby ducks. There were 10 of them and they were all only a few days old.  Unfortunately,  4 of them were already dead so I buried them in our pasture.  The other six stayed in the box for the next few hours while I cut wood.  I hoped that the pickup would come back looking for the box but it never showed up.
    When I was finally done cutting I brought the box of ducks up to the farmhouse area with me.  I showed them to my Better Half,  Renee,  and she decided that we should keep them.  We put them into our baby poultry area in the chicken house and proceeded to raise them. After a few weeks it became obvious that we had at least 3 different types of ducks.  Second mystery (The 1st was who lost them.) becomes evident because our local stores only sell 2 types of ducks.  
    Moving forward by about 4 weeks,  the ducks are allowed to move in with the chickens. We put a small pool in the chicken pen and proceeded to watch the show begin!  If you've never seen it before I can't begin to put it into words.  A few baby ducks and a  container with about 5 inches of water in it can a dull moment into a very entertaining day.
     We really enjoyed the ducks until they grew up. Then we had our first problem.  It seemed that we ended up with 4 females and 2 males.  The 2 drakes started to get very rough with the females.  I don't know why this happened.  I do know if it was that the drakes were Pekins and the hens were not caused the difficulties or what.  But 2 of the 4 hens were blinded in one eye each and all 4 were getting tore up. Because of this we decided to put the drakes down and can the meat in half-pint jars for stir fry meals.  
    The 4 hens are still doing fine.  They made it through a Michigan winter and they are laying eggs pretty much every day.  We have found out that baked goods made with duck eggs are superior to ones made with chicken eggs.  All of the hens are friendly and they still get very excited when we use the garden hose around them.
     I would hazard a guess that we will continue to have ducks on the farm for the foreseeable future.  They just seem to make life go smoother.  They're relatively easy to care for and they give us back eggs,  meat,  and humor  - with emphasis on the humor, which is so very important in a world like today.