Ducks might survive on the kitchen scraps you give them every once in a while, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get them the ideal feed. While ducks will eat almost anything, you still need to give them healthy, nutritious food to aid in their healthy growth.
We have compiled a list of the best duck foods to help you find the ideal one.
Quick List: 7 Best Duck Food
- Manna Pro Duck Layer Pellet (Best Duck Food for laying ducks)
- Purina Animal Nutrition Duck Pellets (Best Duck Food for growing ducks)
- Manna Pro Starter Pack for Young Ducks (Best Duck Food for young ducks)
- Natural Waterscapes Floating Pellets for Ducks (Best Duck Food for feeding in water)
- Mann Lake High Protein Grubs for Ducks (Best Mealworm Treat for ducks)
- Homestead Harvest All Flock Feed (Best Multipurpose Duck Feed)
- Scratch and Peck Feeds (Best Grit Feed for ducks)
Popular Duck Food Brands
There are several brands in the market, that have been bringing a revolution in duck food over the years. Some of these brands are:
Top 7 Duck Foods Reviewed
You should select the idea duck food based on your duck size, age and quantity. You should always observe if they are liking the feed. Here are the detailed review of the best duck feeds:
1. Manna Pro Duck Layer Pellet
Manna Pro is a famous manufacturer of domestic bird food. Its feeds usually have a proper balance of nutrients. Their ingredients also typically have no harmful side effects on the birds that feed on them.
It is, therefore, no surprise that their pellet for ducks is on or list. Like all the other Manna Pro feeds, this feed has no antibiotics or medicated ingredients that could harm your ducks.
With its balanced nutrition, it will be easier for you to increase egg production from the ducks. The high-quality protein on offer will not only ensure healthy and strong ducks but will also increase productivity.
Although this duck food doesn’t have medicated ingredients, it has probiotics that promote the duck’s immunity to diseases. The probiotics will also aid in digestion as well as boosting egg production.
Manna Pro pride itself on natural ingredients, and this feed sticks to the same script. The ingredients contain no artificial colors or GMOs that could cause unwarranted effects on your ducks.
Overall, this feed is the best duck food for laying ducks. It will help you rear healthy ducks that lay many eggs and would thus be worth trying out.
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2. Purina Animal Nutrition Duck Pellets
Next is the Purina duck pellets with nutrient balance tailored to meet the niacin needs of egg-laying and young ducks. It is nutritious enough to feed it as the sole feed for ducks from when the ducks hatch to adult life.
It contains prebiotics and probiotics that ensure the ducks are safe from several avian diseases. That’s because probiotics and prebiotics confer onto the strong bird immunity that helps them fend off infections.
This feed has a protein content of 19 percent that makes it ideal for older ducklings. Although younger ducklings might not need too much protein, it will be integral to muscle development and skeletal growth.
Additionally, this feed will also improve the feathering ability of the birds. As the ducks grow through the various stages, they might need help getting feathers to grow, as, for some, it isn’t that obvious.
On the negative side, this feed, although significantly beneficial, is quite expensive. It, however, would be worth spending on since the benefits far outweigh that one negative.
This is the best duck feed for growing ducks. Your ducks are sure to like it.
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3. Manna Pro Starter Pack for Young Ducks
If you have ducklings and are looking for the ideal feed to help them grow into healthy adult ducks, this is the feed you need. The Manna Pro grower’s starter pack prides itself on its non-medicated formulation free of any antibiotics.
It makes use of natural ingredients tailored in such a way to ensure your ducklings thrive. Its proper balance of nutrients will support rapid muscle and skeletal development.
The Manna Pro starter pack duck feed also has probiotics that promote proper gut health and aid in the digestion of food by the ducklings. What’s more, it helps in the production of strong eggs and albeit larger quantities.
What makes this feed more suitable for ducklings is that it comes in the form of pellets. Pellets are usually in a size that is easier for small ducklings to eat. Combined with the nutrients available in the food.
Another reason its feed is ideal for your ducks is the natural ingredients it uses. You are, therefore, sure of the feeds being free of any artificial colors and GMOs. That makes it safe for your ducks.
Your ducklings need so many nutrients to grow into the strong, healthy ducks you want. This feed might not be everything you need, but it is the best duck feed for ducklings. It will go a long way in helping you raise them successfully.
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4. Natural Waterscapes Floating Pellets for Ducks
This feed is ideal if you have swimming ducks as well as swans. It is capable of floating on water for an extended period for your ducks to feed on as they swim. It is appropriately formulated for water birds and has a proper balance of nutrients they need.
The balance of nutrients means you can have your water birds develop faster and grow into strong, healthy adults. It has a healthy balance of fiber and proteins made so that they don’t go to waste in the water.
However, chances of them going to waste are minimal since the ducks and swans are sure to like the food. Although it contains no artificial colors, it will easily attract the ducks.
You don’t have to feed it to ducks and swan alone since geese, and other wild birds can also eat it. Granted, you want it for your ducks. Feeding to any other birds won’t be a problem.
The packaging of this feed takes into account the freshness of the feeds. That’s why it is in resealable bags to ensure it is fresh for as long as possible. You won’t have to worry about it getting molds after just a few days of storage.
Although it is for waterbirds, you can also feed it to the ducks at home. This is the best duck food to feed in the water. Ground feeding is entirely possible with this feed, and your ducks will love it.
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5. Mann Lake High Protein Grubs for Ducks
The Mann lake grubs for ducks is a high protein feed of mealworms that will be nutritious for your ducks and chickens. It is a dried feed that will last you the better part of several weeks, depending on how much you feed it to your birds.
It is a multipurpose feed you can give to other animals as well. Wild birds, parrots, and fish will love it. The Mann lake feed, apart from proteins, has a suitable balance of other nutrients that will aid in the growth of your ducks.
The feed is also quite long-lasting. You can keep it in your refrigerator until such a time you feel you want to feed it to your ducks. If too dry, you can rehydrate it by soaking it in water, and it will be ready for your ducks.
This feed will come in handy in boosting the immune system of your ducks, especially in the winter. With the mix of nutrients on offer, your ducks will have a thriving immune system that will protect them from common ailments. This is the best treat for your ducks.
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6. Homestead Harvest All Flock Feed
Next is the Homestead harvest all flock feed that prides itself on the sustainable family farming that produces the feed. It is a wholesome blend of all-natural grains free of GMO ingredients.
The blend is responsible for the highly nutritious feed this Homestead Harvest feed is. It has an adequate number of vitamins, minerals, and probiotics that will help to keep your ducks in good health. The probiotics come with prebiotics that will prevent contamination by toxins.
In addition to the minerals, it also has essential herbs and oils that further boost the nutritional value of the feed. Another element it has that will boost the health of your birds is diatomaceous earth.
With its all-natural ingredients and high nutritional value, this feed will help your ducks grow healthy and strong. This is the best multipurpose feed, as you can feed it to chicken, ducks, birds, parrots, and whatnot.
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7. Scratch and Peck Feeds
The final duck feed on our list is the Scratch and Peck feed. This feed is a grit supplement for a variety of birds, from chickens to ducks. It is ideal for egg-laying birds since it helps in the digestion of the various feeds the bid eats.
If you feed the duck on whole-grain feeds, this grit will come in handy, helping the suck extract maximum nutrients from the grains. Without grit, the bird can’t ground all the food and give the duck all the nutrients it needs.
You can either give this feed by pouring it onto the ground for the ducks to scratch as they eat or place it in a separate feeding tray. Note that if you put it on the ground, it will help encourage natural feeding behavior rather than the feed tray mode of eating.
This Scratch and Peck grit has granite and quartzite as the major ingredients. The two stay in the bird’s gizzard and grind all the food passing through. The grit will therefore come in handy in areas where your ducks have no access to small rocks.
It would be best if you gave it to birds that are about 8 to 20 weeks. Administering in the right amounts at the right time will ensure your birds have all the nutrients they need from the food they eat. If the ducks are young, use smaller-sized grit.
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Choosing the Best Duck Food
Choosing the food your ducks can eat might appear to be relatively straightforward, but that is far from the truth. There are several things you will have to consider before buying duck food.
Besides looking at the nutrients in the duck feed, you will also need to know the purpose of the feed. Let’s go through some of the things you need to consider before buying duck food.
What is the Level of Nutrients of the food?
Ducks, like any other birds, have the nutrients they need to grow healthy and strong. That is why you will need to consider the nutrient level of any food you buy. Most duck foods will have different nutrients that would be impossible to get in one of them.
Some foods will have a higher content of nutrients than others. Some are exclusively high protein and will therefore have lesser content of other nutrients. The ideal feed should have all the major nutrients your ducks will need.
It is important to remember that not all foods that claim to be nutritious are indeed nutritious. With this in mind, selecting the most nutritional feed for your duck shouldn’t be a complicated affair.
How much does it cost?
While the type of feed you buy will depend on many other factors such as the nutrient level, price should also play an important role in this. Depending on your budget, you should get the ideal feed at fairly reasonable prices if you are willing to look around and weigh the best deal.
Some foods are rather expensive even though they wouldn’t be of much help to your birds. That is why you need to compare the price of any feed with the amount of nutrients it claims to have.
That should also mean comparing prices from different places before finally settling on one of them.
How much food do your ducks eat?
Ducks like eating several times a day, no matter what type of food you are giving them. As the primary caregiver, you should be conversant with the number of times and the amount of food your ducks eat. That is because it will directly affect the amount of food you will buy for them.
If you have many ducks, you will have to get a substantial quantity of food for them and vice versa. That is why it is prudent to consider the feeding habits of your ducks before buying food. It will help you to know the appropriate amount to go for.
What Is the Main Purpose of the Feed?
There are different types of duck feed, each whit a specific purpose. The Scratch and Peck feed on this list, for instance, is mainly to be eaten as grit. Its central role is to improve the extraction of nutrients from other feeds. You, therefore, can’t use it as the primary meal for the ducks.
Some other feeds serve different purposes. You need to know the kind of feed you are looking for and what you want it to do for your duck. That will prevent you from ending up with a feed that isn’t suitable for the purpose you set out to buy it for.
What are the foods Ingredients?
The ingredients matter a lot because some feeds could have harmful components to your bird’s health. Most duck foods will have the necessary nutrients and fees in appropriate amounts, but some may not.
For instance, soy isn’t that helpful to most bird species, but some feed makers will have it as an ingredient. You, therefore, need to consider the ingredients that make up a particular feed to ensure you are feeding your duck the right food.
With the ingredients also come chances to add some other grains whose origin you might be oblivious of. GMOs would be another concern that would necessitate you knowing the ingredients of the feed you are buying.
GMOs could be harmful to your ducks, so you need to ensure you are buying duck food that doesn’t rely on such ingredients.
What Is the Best Thing to Feed Ducks?
Some people think that ducks will eat anything. That is far from the case since there are foods you can’t give to a duck. Apart from such foods lacking the nutritional capacity to help the duck, they might even be harmful to their health.
Foods such as bread or crisps might seem okay to give to the ducks but aren’t. Bread offers ducks nothing in nutritional value, and as such, you should avoid giving your ducks bread.
Junk food scraps from your kitchen or popcorn and donuts are also a no-go for ducks. Like bread, they won’t help the duck in any way and might even lead to health issues that would needlessly stress you out. That is why you should stick to the best duck food brands.
When feeding the ducks, other foods monitor their feeding habits. If they leave too much of it uneaten, then it means they don t like the food or are full. That means you will have to monitor them some more to see if they were full or don’t like the food.
The Bottom Line
We hope you now know the best duck food to get for your ducks and some of the foods to avoid when rearing ducks. It is prudent to focus more on the nutritional value of food before buying it. Such food will help your duck grow healthy and at a rapid rate.
It would also help to ensure such food you buy doesn’t have any GMO pr artificial ingredients that could be a health risk. Fortunately, we have provided you with the safest foods on the market for ducks.
With our guide, it will be easier for you to select suitable duck food. It shouldn’t be that hard for you. All the best.