How Long Do Ducks Live? Wild and Domestic Lifespans

A wild mallard that reaches adulthood usually lives a few years. A kept duck commonly lives eight to fifteen. Both numbers are true, and the gap between them comes from the dangers a wild duck keeps facing as an adult: Ducks Unlimited’s review of the research finds that “at best only about 50 percent to 70 percent of adult ducks” survive each year.

Why averages mislead

Average lifespans for wild ducks, taken across all young birds, come out startlingly low. Run the British Trust for Ornithology’s mallard survival rates — 0.518 in the first year, 0.627 a year after that — and on average a young mallard gets through only about 1.4 more full years. That figure is real, but it is not describing what happens to an adult duck. It is being dragged down by the large share of birds that die in their first year.

Duckling mortality in wild ducks is severe. Ducks Unlimited puts survival from hatching to flight at anywhere “from less than 10 percent to as high as 70 percent”, and first-year survival at “only 30 percent to 50 percent”. Once you separate out the birds that survive their first year, the picture improves: the BTO puts the typical life expectancy of a mallard that reaches breeding age at three years.

So the useful question is not “how long does a duck live” but “how long does a duck live given that it survived the beginning“. Why the beginning is so lethal is covered in our guide to ducklings.

How long do ducks live? The numbers

Wild ducks

Typical

A wild mallard past its first year commonly lives a further few years. Ringing schemes — where birds are fitted with numbered rings and recovered later — give the clearest evidence, and they show a long tail of survivors, with exceptional individuals recovered past twenty years old.

How long do mallards live?

The records give the shape of it. The British Trust for Ornithology’s ringing data put a mallard’s “typical life expectancy of bird reaching breeding age” at three years, and its maximum recorded age from a ringed bird at 20 years, 5 months. The North American record is longer still: the Cornell Lab of Ornithology reports that “the oldest known Mallard was a male, and at least 27 years, 7 months old when he was shot in Arkansas in 2008. He had been banded in Louisiana in 1981.” Between the typical three and the record twenty-seven lies the whole story of this page — most adults live a few years, and a few live a very long time.

Annual survival tells you why. Ducks Unlimited’s review of the research puts it bluntly: “at best only about 50 percent to 70 percent of adult ducks and 70 percent to 90 percent of adult geese and swans survive each year.” For mallards specifically, a Great Lakes study found “annual survival among female mallards from the Great Lakes states was approximately 51 percent, slightly lower than the 58 percent annual survival estimated among prairie-nesting mallards”, and the BTO’s figure for British adults is 0.627 — roughly five birds in eight seeing the next year. Run that for a few years and the tail of old survivors gets thin fast.

What kills wild ducks

• Predation — foxes, mink and birds of prey; for ducklings, Ducks Unlimited adds fish such as northern pike, and gulls, herons and crows, among many others.
• Hard winters — ice and snow cover restrict feeding just as the cold raises the energy a duck needs to keep warm.
• Disease — botulism in particular: “Massive mortality events can occur in waterfowl,” according to the Merck Veterinary Manual.
• Hunting — for quarry species, and young birds more than adults: Ducks Unlimited notes that immature waterfowl are shot at 1.25 to 2.5 times the rate of adults.
• Collisions — with power lines among other things: in one North Dakota wetland study, waterfowl were among the birds most vulnerable to striking transmission lines.

Staying put through a hard winter can be fatal: once prolonged cold has run down a duck’s fat reserves, Ducks Unlimited says, waterfowl “must either migrate or face starvation and eventual death”. The trade-offs are in where ducks go in winter.

Kept ducks

Remove predation, provide food all year, and add shelter, and the numbers change sharply. Well-kept domestic ducks commonly live eight to fifteen years, and individual birds go well beyond that. Two bodies that publish a figure overlap on the range and agree on the tail: the Open Sanctuary Project gives “8-15 years, with some individuals living well beyond that”, and Metzer Farms, a California duck hatchery, says that “while the average life expectancy of a domestic duck varies greatly from 5-15 years, some pet ducks have lived over 20 years!”

Breed matters:

• Lighter, active breeds — Indian Runners, Khaki Campbells, Welsh Harlequins — avoid the extra joint strain that comes with size, but all three are also prolific layers (see below).
• Heavy meat breeds — the Open Sanctuary Project names the Pekin, Moulard and Muscovy — are at increased risk of arthritis, as are overweight birds of any breed.
• Heavy-laying strains — by the Livestock Conservancy’s figures, good Runner strains lay over 250 eggs a year, Khaki Campbells 250 to 340 and Welsh Harlequins 240 to 330. The Open Sanctuary Project notes that reproductive problems are common in some breeds.

What actually extends a kept duck’s life

The main things a keeper controls:

1. Predator-proof housing at night

A fox can clear an entire flock in one visit: Wildlife Online explains that penned birds flapping in panic keep triggering a fox’s prey drive “until the stimulus is gone (i.e. all the birds are dead)”. Ducks must be shut into something genuinely secure every night — solid construction, a latch an animal cannot work open (the Open Sanctuary Project warns that raccoons can open simple ones), and wire buried or aproned at the base against digging.

2. Clean water they cannot foul

Ducks need water deep enough to dunk the head and clear the nostrils, available whenever food is. They also dirty water astonishingly fast. Water is also where botulism takes hold in the wild: the Merck Veterinary Manual links outbreaks in wild waterfowl to “low and fluctuating water levels, the presence of vertebrate carcasses and rotting vegetation, and high ambient temperatures”. Whether that means a pond or simply a well-managed tub is answered in do ducks need a pond.

3. The right feed

Waterfowl pellets, grit if they are fed whole grains, and free-choice oyster shell for laying females. Another avoidable mistake is raising ducklings on chick feed that lacks enough niacin (Metzer Farms says chicken feed “sometimes needs to be supplemented by niacin”); the deficiency causes leg weakness that can be permanent. Diet across the whole life is covered in what ducks eat.

4. Dry bedding and dry feet

Many ducks sleep on the ground, and the Open Sanctuary Project warns that “prolonged periods of time spent laying on a hard surface can lead to hock sores” — hence ample dry bedding. It lists poor sanitation, rough or hard flooring and a lack of water for swimming among the causes of bumblefoot, a common foot problem.

5. Noticing early

Ducks hide illness well: the Open Sanctuary Project notes that they “tend to hide signs of illness and injury until they are no longer able to do so”. By the time a duck is obviously unwell it is often quite unwell. Learning what your birds normally look like, and acting on small changes — a duck that stays sitting, stops eating, goes quiet, or moves differently — lets you catch problems early. Common duck health problems and when to call a vet covers the signs that need professional attention rather than home management.

6. Winter management

Ducks may in general be less sensitive to cold than chickens, but the Open Sanctuary Project warns that this “should not be misinterpreted to mean they are immune to the effects of cold temperatures”. Its winter priorities are housing that is draught-free but well ventilated, dry bedding, and drinking water kept from freezing. Keeping ducks through winter covers the practical side.

Ageing in ducks

Old ducks slow down in recognisable ways. The Open Sanctuary Project lists the signs of arthritis to watch for as “abnormal gait, bearing weight unevenly when standing, lameness, using their wings for support, and reduced activity”. Laying eventually stops, and reproductive problems are common in some breeds.

Much of it is manageable. The Open Sanctuary Project’s suggestions include water that is easy to get into and out of, soft ground for traction, food and water placed close to where the duck rests, and keeping an old bird with close companions rather than on its own.

If you are thinking of keeping ducks

Take the upper end of the range seriously. A duckling bought in spring is plausibly a ten-year commitment, through winters, holidays, and eventually the vet bills of an old bird. Ducks are also intensely social and should never be kept alone, so it is never one duck.

If that is the commitment you want to make, raising ducklings week by week is the place to start, and the breed you choose — outlined in our profile of the mallard and the domestic breeds that descend from it — will shape a good deal of what the next decade looks like.