Duck Farming in Kenya: Housing, Water and Equipment for Muscovy Ducks

Walk through almost any rural homestead in central and western Kenya and you will find a few Muscovy ducks among the chickens: dark and white birds with red faces, waddling around the compound, eating what the chickens leave and sleeping wherever they choose. Most of them are kept with no plan at all. They lay in hidden corners, the ducklings drown in the water bucket or die on the first cold, wet night, and the farmer concludes that ducks are not worth the trouble.

They can be. Ducks are hardy, forage well, are less troubled by many of the diseases that hit chickens, and duck meat sells to hotels, restaurants and households that want something different, especially around the December holidays. Muscovies in particular are good mothers that will sit on and hatch their own eggs. What they need is a little structure: a dry night house, the right kind of drinker, a sensible brooding setup for ducklings, and a plan for keeping their wet habits from turning the house into a swamp.

This guide covers keeping ducks on a Kenyan smallholding, with a focus on Muscovies because they are the most common: how ducks differ from chickens, how to house them, how to water and feed them without the mess, how to brood ducklings through the short rains, and how to hatch duck eggs in an incubator. For feeding programmes and for any health question, your county livestock officer or a vet is the right source; the sections below concentrate on management and equipment.

Ducks Are Not Wet Chickens: What Is Different

Ducks and chickens share a compound easily, but they are built differently, and most duck problems come from treating them like chickens.

They are messy with water. A duck feeds by taking a mouthful of feed and then a mouthful of water to wash it down, and it cleans its eyes and nostrils by dipping its whole head in water. Wherever ducks drink, water ends up on the floor. In a house, this is the single biggest management problem.

They do not perch the way chickens do. Most ducks sleep on the floor, so the floor must be dry. Muscovies are the exception in part: they can fly short distances and will sit on low perches, walls and roofs, which matters when you plan fencing.

Their eggs take longer to hatch. Chicken eggs hatch in about 21 days. Most domestic ducks, such as Pekin-type ducks, take about 28 days, and Muscovy eggs take about 35 days. These incubation periods are well established in poultry references and they change how you plan an incubator or a broody hen.

Housing: A Dry Floor and a Safe Night

Ducks need far less housing than layers or broilers, but they do need a night house. Free-roaming ducks that sleep in the open are lost to dogs, mongooses, genets, eagles and thieves, and ducklings are lost to rain. A simple house of timber, iron sheets and chicken wire is enough, built on slightly raised ground so rainwater runs away from it rather than into it.

• Floor. A concrete or well-compacted floor with deep, dry litter such as wood shavings or rice husks is the usual choice. Some farmers put raised slatted panels under and around the drinkers so spilled water drains through; our guide to plastic slatted floors explains how they work.
• Ventilation. Ducks breathe out a lot of moisture. Leave wire-mesh openings high on the walls so damp air escapes, but keep the lower walls solid on the windward side to stop rain blowing in.
• Doors and wire. Use small-mesh chicken wire on openings so predators and wild birds cannot get in, and a door that closes firmly at night.
• Nests. Muscovy ducks prefer to lay in quiet, dark, enclosed spots on the floor. Give them simple floor-level nest boxes with dry bedding in a corner, and they will use them instead of hiding eggs in the bush. Our laying nest page shows a type that can be adapted.
• A run. A fenced run beside the house lets ducks forage by day. Muscovies fly, so a run for them needs a higher fence or netting over the top.

Space needs vary with breed, how long the birds spend inside and how wet the climate is, so ask your livestock officer for figures for your system. As a principle, give ducks more floor space than chickens of a similar weight, because crowded ducks wet their litter faster.

Water: The Drinker Is the Whole Game

Get the drinker right and duck keeping is easy. Get it wrong and you have wet litter, dirty birds and sore eyes.

The drinker must be deep enough for a duck to submerge its head and bill, which ordinary shallow chicken drinkers are not. A bucket or a deep trough works, but adult ducks will try to climb into anything wide. Many farmers use a narrow, deep container with a guard or a lid with head-sized openings, so the birds can dip their heads but not their bodies. Standing the drinker on a slatted panel or a wire-topped frame over a gravel soak pit, ideally outside or at the edge of the house, keeps the splashing off the litter.

Clean and refill drinkers daily. Ducks wash feed and mud into their water, and it turns foul quickly. Nipple drinkers keep water clean but do not let ducks clean their eyes, so if you use them, give ducks a deep dipping container as well, at least for part of the day. For ducklings in the first weeks, shallow drinkers are safer, as explained below. Our guide to poultry water hygiene covers cleaning routines that apply to ducks too.

Feeding Ducks Without Waste

Ducks are good foragers and will eat grass, weeds, kitchen vegetables, insects, snails and fallen grain around the compound, which lowers feed costs on a smallholding. For good growth and laying, though, they need a balanced feed as well. Many farmers in Kenya use chicken feeds for ducks; whether that suits your birds depends on the feed, and ducklings in particular are commonly described in poultry nutrition references as needing more niacin (a B vitamin) than chicks, with leg weakness as a typical sign of shortage. Ask a livestock officer or feed supplier to confirm a suitable feed and any supplement.

Because ducks wash every mouthful down, place feeders near the water but not right beside it, so the feed does not become a wet paste. Pellets are generally wasted less than dry mash, which ducks can struggle to swallow and tend to scatter. Use feeders with a lip and set them at about back height. Feed only what the birds clear in a reasonable time, and keep stored feed dry and off the floor, as our guide to feed storage and moulds explains; ducks are known to be sensitive to mouldy feed.

Brooding Ducklings Through the Short Rains

Ducklings hatched in October and November face the most dangerous conditions of the year: cold nights, rain and damp ground. A Muscovy mother protects her brood well, but ducklings that follow her through wet grass before their feathers grow get soaked and chilled, and a chilled duckling dies fast. Newly hatched ducklings do not yet have waterproof feathers. They become waterproof as they feather out over the following weeks.

1. Brood indoors at first. Keep ducklings in a dry brooder for the first two to three weeks, with or without the mother, rather than letting them roam in wet weather.
2. Provide steady warmth. A brooder lamp, a charcoal or gas brooder, or a broody duck provides heat. Watch the ducklings: huddled under the heat means too cold, scattered to the edges and panting means too hot. Our guide to brooding equipment covers heat sources and layout.
3. Use shallow, safe drinkers. Ducklings can drown or get soaked in deep water. Use shallow chick-type drinkers with pebbles or marbles in the trough, so they can dip their bills but not climb in.
4. Change wet litter daily. Ducklings wet a brooder very quickly. Remove soaked patches every day and add dry bedding.
5. Let them out gradually. Once well feathered and in dry weather, let ducklings out for short periods, bringing them in before rain and at night.

Hatching Duck Eggs: Broody Duck or Incubator?

Muscovy ducks go broody readily and are excellent sitters. For a small flock, letting a duck hatch her own eggs is the simplest option: give her a dry, quiet nest box, feed and water close by, and protection from predators. Muscovy hens are often used to hatch chicken eggs as well.

An incubator makes sense once you want more ducklings than your ducks can hatch, or want to sell ducklings. Before buying or using one for duck eggs, check two things. First, the egg trays: duck eggs are larger than chicken eggs, so an incubator rated for a number of chicken eggs holds fewer duck eggs, and some trays do not hold duck eggs well. Ask for duck egg capacity, not just chicken egg capacity. Second, the programme: Muscovy eggs need about 35 days, so the incubator is tied up for five weeks per batch, and the turning, candling and lockdown dates all move. Duck eggs are also commonly incubated at a somewhat higher humidity in the final days than chicken eggs; follow the manufacturer's settings for duck eggs.

Our guides to choosing an egg incubator and incubator humidity control cover the general principles, and our egg incubators page lists the sizes we stock.

Selling Ducks and Duck Eggs

Duck meat and eggs have a smaller market in Kenya than chicken, so line up buyers before you scale up. Hotels, restaurants, butcheries in larger towns and individual households are the usual outlets, and demand typically rises over the festive season. Muscovy drakes grow considerably larger than the ducks, so many farmers sell drakes for meat and keep the ducks for laying and hatching. Weigh birds before you sell them, as our weighing scales guide recommends, and move them in proper crates rather than tied by the legs; our guide to poultry transport crates explains why.

Duck Equipment Checklist, With Prices

Most duck equipment is the same as for chickens, chosen and placed with water in mind. These prices are from the Fuga price list at the time of writing; check the site or a branch for current prices and stock.

Give ducks a dry night house, deep but guarded drinkers placed where the splashing cannot reach the litter, a balanced feed placed near but not beside the water, and a warm, dry brooder for ducklings through the rains. For drinkers, feeders, slatted floors, chicken wire and incubators, visit any Fuga branch, browse our livestock and poultry equipment, or WhatsApp 0716 961 018. If you also keep indigenous chickens, our guide to improved kienyeji housing covers the other half of the compound.

Frequently Asked Questions