Lisa Steele - Duck Eggs Daily: Raising Happy, Healthy Ducks...Naturally

Praise for Lisa Steele and Duck Eggs Daily

As someone who has kept ducks off and on my entire life I find it bewildering that they are often overlooked as candidates for the home flock. They can be easy to keep, prolific egg layers and endlessly amusing to have around. Lisa and I share equally our enthusiasm for ducks. Lisas book sets the homeowner on the right path, providing both the knowledge and confidence for success.

~ P. Allen Smith, host of PBSs Garden Home

When it comes to ducks, Lisa Steele knows her stuff, offering up the insight and advice you will need to raise happy, healthy ducks. Whether youre nurturing ducklings or wondering what to do with your windfall of duck eggs, Steeles book offers gentle guidance on the art and science of keeping these beautiful, rewarding animals.

~ Felicia Feaster, Editor-in-Chief, HGTV Gardens

If youre ready to move from the wonderful world of backyard chicken-keeping to raising ducks, you couldnt ask for a better friend and mentor to have by your side than Lisa Steele. With the care and attention she gives every member of her flock and the sage advice she passes along to the poultry community, any bird in her care is, well, a lucky duck.

~ Rachael Brugger, Managing Editor, HobbyFarms.com and UrbanFarmOnline.com

Its no surprise that Lisa should expand her experience of backyard chickens to keeping ducks and once again shes providing us with sound advice based on her no-nonsense, firsthand experience. Great resource if you favor a natural approach to raising ducks.

~ Pascale Deffieux-Pearce, Executive Vice-President, Brinsea Products, Inc.

I have a duck and goose farm and sell hundreds of thousands of ducklings and goslings a year yet I found Lisas book fascinating and couldnt put it down! Great description of ducks and their lives, evident hands-on knowledge, fantastic suggestions, very practical recommendations, and charming observations of her ducks and their actions. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is considering a quack, a splash, and an entertainer in their back yard or on their farm.

~ John Metzer, owner, Metzer Farms

For all you duck lovers and duck farmers, here is your next must read book. Its filled with great resources and all the information you need to know about selecting and caring for your flock. Lisa Steele has been rocking the chicken world for years at Fresh Eggs Daily and now she is sharing her passion and wealth of knowledge about ducks with you.

~ C S Wurzberger, The Green Up Girl, podcast host for The Livestock Conservancys Heritage Breeds

DUCK EGGS

Daily

raising happy, healthy ducks... naturally

LISA STEELE

Duck Eggs Daily

Raising Happy, Healthy Ducks... Naturally

Copyright 2015 by Lisa Steele

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

ISBN-13: 978-0-9892688-8-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015938236
CIP information available upon request

First Edition, 2015

St. Lynns Press . POB 18680 . Pittsburgh, PA 15236
412.466.0790 . www.stlynnspress.com

Book design Holly Rosborough
Editor Catherine Dees

Photo credits: pg. Darlene Terry, Whimsical Years Photography All other photography Lisa Steele

Printed in China
on certified FSC recycled paper using soy-based inks

This title and all of St. Lynns Press books may be purchased for educational, business or sales promotional use. For information please write: Special Markets Department . St. Lynns Press . POB 18680 . Pittsburgh, PA 15236

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FOR
PUDDLES
AND
BOB

Raising ducks wasnt part of the original plan when I walked into the feed store that fateful morning early in the spring of 2009 to pick out some day-old chicks to begin my foray into backyard chicken keeping. But when we finished picking out our selection of chicks and my husband said, Well take two of those, too and pointed towards a bin full of peeping ducklings, my heart melted; I couldnt resist especially after the feed store owner told us that raising ducks is exactly the same as raising chickens (which turned out to not be entirely true, but more on that later!). I had grown up around chickens and raised them as a child, so I felt pretty comfortable I could handle them; ducklings were another story. I had no experience raising ducks. Figuring it couldnt be that hard, we put two of the fuzzy brownish ducklings into the box with our chicks and happily made our way home.

I spent the next few weeks scouring the Internet for information on raising ducks and read every book and magazine article I could get my hands on. As it turned out, for optimal duck health and happiness, there are a few things that dont come into play in chicken keeping...

The first thing that became painfully obvious was that ducklings grow fast really fast. Within a few days, the tiny ducklings that had started out the same size as the chicks when we bought them were towering over the poor chicks and trampling them. Not only that, the ducklings would immediately drain the chick waterer every time I filled it and the brooder was constantly a mess of sodden shavings. I switched to a shallow water bowl and the ducklings would sit in it and splash to their hearts content, not allowing the chicks near to get a drink. And that was the end of community brooding. The ducklings moved into a spare bathtub until they were ready to be outside, leaving the chicks alone and finally dry and happy.

Despite that slightly rough start, I have enjoyed every minute of raising ducks. Those two Mallard ducklings, Puddles and Bob, were soon joined by three Pekin ducklings from a local farm that were supposed to be an Easter surprise for a buyer who never showed up to claim them. I started researching different domestic duck breeds and realized I would have to either order shipped ducklings or buy some fertile hatching eggs to get the breeds I wanted, since only Pekins and Mallards were available to me locally. That led to more reading and research into hatching duck eggs and soon I had several successful duckling hatches under my belt using an incubator. I even got lucky last spring and hatched eggs under a duck my first broody duck ever!