Tips to Help Your Ducks Stay Cool This Summer
In addition to being extremely cold-hardy, ducks are also fairly heat-tolerant.
Of course in the summer, as always, it's important to provide them with clean, cool water to drink and plenty of shade.
Give them a kiddie pool to splash around in, and they'll likely be just fine no matter how high the mercury rises, but here are a few more tips to help your ducks beat the heat.
Tips to help your Ducks Stay Cool This Summer
Eggs are mostly water, so therefore the process of laying eggs siphons much of the fluid your ducks drink from their bodies into the eggs.
Access to plenty of water is critical year round, but especially in the summer. Clean water is relative when it comes to ducks, but providing fresh water and refilling the water tubs several times a day should suffice.
Your ducks will love splashing or floating around in a pool when it's hot.
You can use a plastic kiddie pool, horse trough, re-purposed garden tub, pool kit or even just a hole dug in the ground and filled with water. If you can, set up a few pools so everyone can swim at once.
Water stagnates quickly in the heat and can lead to botulism and other harmful bacteria, so refill the pools every day, dumping out the water from the day before and scrubbing the pool with white vinegar and rinsing it out well before refilling.
Normally I don't leave feed or water in the duck house, but if the overnight temperature is going to be 75 degrees or higher, I generally do leave a tub of water.
Outdoor Night Pen
You might be tempted to leave your ducks out overnight in the pen or run where it's cooler, but if you do, be sure your pen is 100% predator-proof.
It's very hard to make a pen safe enough, but at a bare minimum, welded wire or chain link fencing sunk into the ground with chicken wire or other smaller gauge fencing around the bottom two feet.
This is necessary to prevent raccoons or other predators from digging underneath, ripping through or reaching through the fencing and grabbing ducks who tend to sleep up against the sides of a pen. The top must be covered as well with a heavy-gauge fencing.
Chicken wire or poultry netting is NOT predator-proof.
Installing Nite Guard solar predator lights is also something I HIGHLY recommend. They will prevent predators from even thinking about coming anywhere near your pen - whether or not you lock your ducks in a house or coop at night, I recommend the solar lights.
They are a small price to pay for peace of mind and your ducks' safety.
Signs of Heat Exhaustion
Ducks will pant when they get hot. Their wings might also droop.
In times of extreme heat, if you notice a duck lying down with her eyes closed, panting heavily or seemingly in distress, move her inside to a cool place immediately.
Place her in a tub of cool water and get her to drink some sugar water or water with electrolytes in it.
Ducklings are far more susceptible to heat exhaustion than older ducks, so watch your little ones closely.
