Chook Me!

I'm thinking about getting a few Indian Runner Ducks. Any ideas?

Well, I've been really wanting to keep ducks for awhile and just from the small amount of research I've done on them, it sounds like Indian Runner ducks are the best. Can anyone that has had this kind of duck give me some advice? I heard from one website that they don't fly? Is that true? Also, when building the coop, is it a good idea to have the shelves that line the walls like in chicken coops, where the chickens lay their eggs, or is that a bad idea for ducks?

Public Comments

1. The best all-round food is wheat. They cannot fly more than a hop, skip and a flutter. Really there is no need to clip the wings of pure-breed Runners. Although Runners don’t strictly need access to swimming water (older birds barely take a dip at all), they do really enjoy it, particularly youngsters (but only after five weeks, when they have enough proper feathers to be water-proof) and breeding birds.
2. I used to have Runner ducks and Khaki Campbells, they flap as they run along but don't "fly" as such so you don't need the fencing to be very high, just high enough to prevent predators getting in. We used a normal 6x8ft shed with 3 nest box compartments on the floor of the shed against one wall. We had chickens in the same pen, the chickens roosted on perches across the shed and the ducks on the floor of the shed. The ducks lay any old where to be honest, even outside in the mud ground, they're not choosy like chickens lol. Use woodshavings (not sawdust) for bedding and you can put hay in the nest boxes if you wish, they won't bother if you do or don't. Make sure you get more females than males, you don't actually need drakes at all. A flock of 4 or 5 females will keep you supplied with delicious eggs. You can sex ducks at around 5-6 weeks of age. If you pick it up and it quacks really loudly its female, drakes make a lower hissing noise. Also drakes have curled over tails. You could have 1 male with this many females if you really wanted one, its fun to watch them displaying and head bobbing. They need a pond/sunken bath to swim in whenever they want to, mine would swim 2-3 times a day really swimming and going underwater they love it as you can see from my video, these ducks are Runner/KC crosses http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHB8oDFtrho that low croaky quaking is the male (the white one). Kiddies paddling pools are no good, the water must be on or below their level they can get stuck in paddling pools and drown through their feathers getting waterlogged. They love eating grass but soon make mud out of their pen by constant dabbling, its best to have 2 enclosures, one in use and one resting so the grass can grow back. We didn't do this and had to sell the ducks as the pen was desperately muddy literally up to the top of my wellington boots. They eat chicken layers food and household scraps too. One word of caution ducks hate going to bed, often its dark and they refuse to go into the shed for the night. This means 11pm sometimes (depending on where you live) you are running around trying to get them to go in for the night. Someone reliable has to do this every day, and let them out, fed them etc. No more popping away for a day or 2 without arranging for someone to care for your birds. Bit of a tie really seeing as they can live for 6 or 7 years.