When ducklings first hatch they need constant warmth to keep them alive and healthy. When you buy newly hatched ducklings at a farm supply store or from online farm stores that ship newborn poultry you'll need to keep them indoors in something called a "brooder." A brooder is basically a heated box for baby birds or other animals.

A brooder is pretty simple. You need a heat lamp, food, water, and a box. Right now our ducklings are less than a week old and have to stay in a brooder.

Our Brooder For Our Four Ducklings

A Heat Lamp

The heat lamp does exactly what the name says. It heats up and keeps things warm. You have to be careful with a heat lamp. They can get super hot and can fry baby animals. That's why you need to choose a box that is large enough that your ducklings can go to another side of the box to cool off. Ducklings may need a heat lamp for up to six weeks until they develop feathers and can maintain their body temperature.

For our ducklings we used a really large plastic tote. We can easily take it outside and hose it down to clean it when the babies make a huge mess. We've been told some people keep their ducklings in a bathtub in homes that have second bathrooms. Ducklings love water and are super messy. A bathtub is easy to clean like a plastic tote.

You need to be careful with heat lamps. Ours doesn't have any temperature settings. It's only setting is super hot! This thing is a fire hazard so we have to ensure it is setup properly. Our ducklings are toasty warm but can head to the other side of their brooder out of the light when they feel too warm and want to play in their water dish.

Water To Drink

The next thing to consider is a water source. Ducklings need a constant source of water and food when they are young. You'll need to leave both in your brooder so your ducklings will grow up big and strong. Ducklings love water and go through it fast. Ducks can't swallow their food without drinking some water so you'll want a water dispenser that can hold a lot of water.

This Water Dispenser Was A Mistake

The guy at the farm supply store said buy this particular dispenser because you can hook a mason jar up to it and it only cost a few dollars. Yeah...by the day these ducks were four days old this thing was a pain in the butt. Ducklings drink, splash, and play in the water dish. They started running out of water every two hours. I had to wake up every few hours during the night to check to make sure they had water. Choose a different dispenser that is large if you have more than a few ducklings. We have four.

A Much Better Choice

You Should Also Get Probiotics and Electrolytes

You add these two powders to their water. The probiotics help the ducklings with digestion and electrolytes help with hydration. Our ducklings were shipped through the mail and went through a really stressful first few days of life. They were shipped when they were a day old. These supplements are suppose to help ducklings and are especially good for ducklings who have gone through a lot of stress.

A Food Source

It is good to get your duckling a feeder of some kind that is designed for baby chicks or ducks...

Yellow duckie will sleep in the food bowl if you use a normal bowl.

Ducklings are messy. It helps to have a feeder for them to decrease the mess. The one we got is like the first water dish we got. You pour the food in a mason jar and screw it in the feeders base. We only had one jar when we had to set up our brooder so we haven't used that feature yet. The ducklings will have food at all times until they are older and we move them outside into their duck coop.

A Chick Feeder

The food you should get needs to be unmedicated and can be chick starter which is what our farm supply store sold.

Outside View Of Our Brooder

We put the bars to an old rabbit cage on top of the plastic tote. We have five cats so this was to protect the ducklings. Thankfully our cats are fat and lazy so they've shown no interest in the ducklings. The cage actually ended up helping us mount the heat lamp in a position that was perfect for keeping the brooder warm and not too hot. The heat lamp is a bit hard to regulate and we had to move it around a bunch to find the right spot for the right temperature.

A brooder is a temporary setup and you'll only need it until your ducklings are fully feathered and can retain body heat. If you aren't planning on raising ducklings or chicks regularly, and can find shortcuts to save money I recommend it. The heat lamp is a must but you can make different dishes for food/water work. We had the plastic tote and wood chips which was nice. These four ducks will be our only ones for now so we don't need the brooder past six or so weeks.

I'll Be Sad To See This Baby All Grown Up!