Debutant. Completely new and want to keep runner ducks !?

[flynnboy]

Hi everyone, we are completely new to keeping fowl of any kind, but we have fallen in love with runner ducks! First we have a very large garden and so I think we are OK with that. Our first questions are as follows, and I hope they are not too annoying but please bear with us if possible.

How many should we get, 3 or 4 is about as many as I think our garden and ourselves could cope with as a start?

Very important, housing.... we have a redundant wood built 'garage' currently empty and unused. It seems that this will be perfect to house the ducks but we have a couple of questions. The floor is a dirt floor, is this OK or should we install a different floor ? We do know that they will need bedding, but, wood shavings or straw ?

We have a number of flower beds, will they damage them !

We will be really grateful for any advice.

Thank you very much !

 

[LadyA]

Hello flynnboy and welcome.
I'm afraid I know absolutely nothing about keeping ducks, but I do agree with you about runners. They are gorgeous! I couldn't believe my eyes the first time I saw them. They were sitting beside a pond, looking all innocent. And the next thing, they stood up and took off, well, running! I'd never seen anything like it!

Actually, I realise I do know something about ducks. I believe they make a heck of a mess, with their wet feet! (They will need water, not just for drinking, too, I think) So, I'm not sure how long a dirt floor would last, before it gets churned into a mud floor!

 

[rick]

There is, of course, the page on the poultrykeeper site:
https://poultrykeeper.com/duck-keeping/

I've just found out what a runner duck is for (apart from being really cool!) - running over crop fields to eat insects apparently.
Makes me wonder if they need a big range to run/forage in?

 

[Minorcafan]

I no longer have runners but they were great fun to have. They charged around together, flattened everything and needed to be herded into their house for the night. I had a small padding pool for their use and they didn't half fill it with muck!