Ducks don’t just need water, they love it!

All animals need water to live, but ducks need a lot of water to stay healthy and be happy ducks.

Without it, they can suffer ill health effects, become distressed, and exhibit anxious and destructive behavior.

 

1. Eating and Drinking: Ducks need water to help swallow their food. Ducks have a hard time eating dry food and need water to help swallow it down. They tend to choke on their food if not given water.

 

2. Keeping their mouths, nostrils, and eyes clean: Ducks need fresh clean water daily to dunk their heads in to keep their mouths, nostrils, or nares, and eyes cleaned out. This helps keep their mucus membranes clean and free of debris. The depth of the water depends on their age. The depth of the water should grow deeper as they grow older. For adult ducks, a two-gallon bucket works well.

 

3. Good feather and skin health: Ducks love water to play and bathe in. The water should be changed often, as it will get dirty fast and can lead to a condition called wet feather. If there is a lot of mud in the water, they will not be able to get their feathers and skin as clean as they should. The dirt in the water can cause their feathers to become dry and brittle, as it will dry out the natural oils on them. Extremely dirty water can begin to grow bacteria and algae and cause sickness.

Ducks have what’s called an oil gland, located on the top of their back, near their tail feathers. They use this oil gland to spread oil onto all their feathers.  This is what helps keep them waterproof, warm and dry.  After bathing they will do what’s called preening, and that’s when they use their bill to rub the oil gland and spread the oil to all their feathers.  This works best for them when they have clean fresh water on a regular basis.

You don’t have to have anything elaborate or expensive to provide a place for then to play and bathe. I’ve found that kiddy pools work great. They are easy to dump, and easy to clean. If you don’t want the dirty water in their pen, you can get a water pump and hose to pump the water out into another area, and you can find them fairly cheap on amazon.

 

4. Ducklings and water: It is natural for a duckling to want to swim as soon as they see water. However, they should not have access to swimming until they are at least two weeks old. At this time their water should not be deep, only a shallow pan or bowl they can stand in should be allowed. Ducklings should not have deep water as they can drown easily. Since they do not have the natural oils or feathers at this point, they can get chilled easily, cause illness or even death. As your ducklings grow, you can slowly deepen the water.

 

It is not necessary for ducks to have a pond. The problem with ponds is they are often out in the open where predators have easy access to them. Ducks are at the bottom of the food chain, and have more predators than people realize.  Please check out my Predator page to see a list of predators of ducks.