A Beginner’s Guide to Keeping Ducks - Keeping Ducks in Your Backyard Table of Contents Introduction Raising Ducks in Your Backyard Choosing Ducks Dabbling Ducks and Diving Ducks Incubation of Ducklings Artificial Incubation Brooding Cleaning duck eggs Ducks and drakes Housing Your Ducks How to Make a Grass Run Keeping a Small Flock Traditional House Dimensions Preventing Flight over Netting Breeding Ducks for the Table. Preparing Ducklings Ducks and Water Feeding Your Ducks. Layers Mash for Ducks What is Grass Meal? What is Bean Meal? Drinking Water Conclusion Author Bio Introduction It must have been somewhere, and some time millenniums ago, when man found that the Mallard and Muscovy that he hunted in the marshes, and brought home to his family was a bird which could be domesticated. One is not very certain about which particular civilization decided that duck brought up in your own farmyard, was a good source of eating for the whole family. Roast duck, broiled duck, duck with seasonings and herbs, even wild duck, along with their cousins, the geese and the swans made excellent fare especially during times, when other food resources were not so easily available. Geese and swans are definitely not considered ducks, though they belong to the same family. The original ancestral species is the same, even though the characteristics differ. Geese and swans are larger in size and can be found in seawater, as well as in freshwater. Ducks are smaller in size, but prefer freshwater habitats. In the same manner, you should not confuse ducks with other aquatic birds like divers, coots and grebes. All of them are good eating, but they are unrelated, except for their liking for water. Apart from the meat content and eggs, ducks have also been reared for their soft down. Drakes are larger in size, when compared to the female ducks. Some of the popular species are Muscovy ducks, Mallards Paradise Shelduck and Aylesbury . The bills are long, broad and sometimes, they are serrated so that the ducks can feed on easily filtered aquatic plant and animal species. A duck shoot has always been a popular occupation of people who enjoy hunting for gain, especially when you are shooting these birds on the wing. A duck cannot fly when it is molting, and it normally molts before the duck group’s migration to a warmer climate.