How long do ducks live? To give you an exact answer, there are so many things to know about the ducks dealing with the ducks’ life span. Ducks are considered as one of the most common species of birds in the world.
Ducks are different from swans and geese although they have nearly the same characteristics. People are often confused to differentiate ducks from loons, grebes, and coots, too. Thus, this article is coming to show you all about ducks including how they look like and live as well as how long they will live.
If you want to breed ducks or just to take care of some ducks for fun, here are what you must check out.
Table of Contents
Ducks Characteristics
The first thing you have to know before checking out the duck’s lifespan is the ducks’ characteristics. It will help you to differentiate the ducks from the ducks’ families like loons, grebes, coots, geese, and swans.
Relatively, ducks come with short necks and wings along with the stout body. They have a smaller body than the other families especially the geese and swans. Commonly, most of the ducks have a brown color and some of them come in reddish-brown color, too.
People always to wonder how to recognize the older ducks and the young one. And, this is one of the reasons why they can’t predict how long the duck will approximately live.
What Do The Ducks Like To Live Longer?
The second thing you need to know about duck is what the duck like to live longer. It deals with where and how they usually like to live. First of all, ducks usually like to live in groups. Wherever you go to the poultry or even just to your neighbor, you will never see two or three ducks, will you? On the other hand, you will exactly see the group of ducks walking together. Approximately, the ducks will be in 10 or more in a group.
Other things you need to know especially if you want to breed ducks is the fact they don’t like to be lifted up. They really like to live around you and see what you do. It makes them feel comfortable. Perhaps, ducks are one of the animals which like to socialize themselves with the surrounding so that they can live longer just like a human.
Where Do The Ducks Like to Live?
Dealing with the question; how long do ducks live, you need also to find out where the ducks like to live. In this case, the ducks like to show up themselves to a sunny hillside of your backyard and play with the water in the pond. For this reason, it is much recommended to always fill the pond with enough water.
Ducks love to live outdoors and have easy access to a grassy land and water where they can swim and clean their body. If you are eager to breed some ducks, it is recommended that you build a pond with enough water and refill it each day.
The ducks will also live well if you provide more spaces for them to walk around. In short, ducks need a natural way of life and to move around to see the surrounding. This is good for their life expectancy.
What Must The Ducks Eat?
The next thing you have to check out if you want your ducks to live longer is to know what they must eat. In this case, you don’t have to worry about what kind of food you must prepare for the ducks. There are a lot of options you can choose such as small fish and egg, grass, leaves and weeds, seeds and grain that you can provide.
They can also search their food by themselves around the pond like snails, worms, slugs, mollusks, algae, and aquatic plants and roots. Even they can consume frogs, tadpoles, salamanders and other amphibians as well as a land insect.
In this concern, you need only to watch out that the environment where the ducks live is healthy so that they also eat healthy foods. Referring to the question; how long do ducks live, more or less will be related with what the duck food. For this reason, you must make sure that they eat and drink enough.
In the farm, the breeder can provide the food based on daily consumption. However, if you have a group of duck at your homestay, providing them with enough food will also contribute to their life span.
How Long Will The Ducks Live?
Although there is no exact answer about it due to the difficulty to differ the old ducks from the young ones, however, based on the statistics, ducks which are categorized into ordinary domestic ducks will be able to live up to ten years. In most cases, they can commonly live for 8 or 9 years.
How long do ducks live? It also depends on the ducks’ type. Large ducks usually live for 4 to 7 years. In this case, the only relatively large species of duck which are able to live longer is the Muscovy. Muscovy is considered able to live between eight and twelve years.
Pekin is the other common breed of duck you should check out dealing with the ducks’ lifespan. Pekin grows very fast but they have a shorter lifespan which is around 5 years only. Meanwhile, some other species of ducks categorized as the ones with longer lifespan are Runners, Blue Swedish, and Cayugas. Their life expectancy can reach up to 10 and 13 years.
One thing you should remember dealing with the ducks’ life expectancy is the number of eggs they lay. It has a great impact. In this case, the more eggs the ducks lay, the shorter their life expectancy will be. Thus, if want to breed ducks in the farm, you must watch out how often the ducks lay eggs and how many eggs they produce. If they give you more and more eggs, it means that they will have a shorter lifespan.
Meanwhile, if you just take care of a group of duck in your homestay, you will not pay more attention to the duck lifespan. It would be just very interesting when it’s time for you to have the eggs every single day. Now you must take it into consideration. If you want your ducks to live longer, never force them to produce eggs by supplying a certain vitamin.
Kinds of Ducks You May Know
The last but not least thing you need also to check out in order to complete your information about how long do ducks live in the kinds of ducks. It is also related to which ducks can live longer. As we have told you in the previous section that Muscovy, Runners, Blue Swedish, and Cayugas are some of the duck’s type with longer lifespan, now you may check out what other kinds of ducks that are recommended to breed.
In this case, one of the longest living breeds of ducks is Bantam ducks. The Black East Indies and the Calls are the two subspecies that are considered able to live around 15 years. These ducks are best described to be able to live healthily and have almost no problem in aging like the other ducks’ species. Amazingly, the oldest duck in the world with the lifespan of 35 years was seaduck called Eider.
Apart from the duck lifespan, if you just want to breed groups of ducks no matter the age of duck, there are a lot of options you can take. This way, Call ducks are the cutest ones to breed. They are just small and don’t eat as much as the larger ducks need. The adorable little bills of the ducks will attract anyone who comes to your house. It is also because Call Ducks has a variety of colors and patterns.
The White and Black Crested Duck is another kind of duck you can take to breed. They are big, funny and have an elegant look along with the white crest on their heads. Another white ducks species which is also friendly is Pekin. Most people breed this kind of ducks in common besides Ancona Ducks, Cayugas, and Rouen.
Conclusion
Now that you have gained a lot of information about ducks as well as how long ducks live, you have an option to breed ducks and choose what kinds of ducks you want to breed either for farm or just for fun to take in the homestay. Make sure you have taken a note which kind of ducks that are able to live longer.
