Raising chicks and ducklings together

Ducklings should not be turned into a adult flock until at MINIMUM 6 weeks. Also your older hens will not take care of them. They will most likely ignore them or assert their dominance for the first few weeks. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by dskoronsk 

I hatched 4 chicks and 2 ducklings with eggs i collected on the homestead. I know for sure that the ducks are one pekin and one pekin/Khaki mix. The ducks are very attached to the chicks but so much larger (although they are younger). As long as i continue to clean the pen every couple days, how long can they stay together? The chicks are 2 weeks and the ducks 1 1/2 weeks old. Also, I have 2 khaki females living with my 2 pygmy goats. How soon can i combine the ducklings? Will the female khaki's take care of them?

I have a friend with 2 month old khaki ducklings mixed in with several different ages of chicks. They get along fine. They have a fairly large space to roam though. I don't know how big of an enclosure you have them in. As long as they are getting along and the ducklings have plenty of space to not trample the chicks, you should be fine. Like Kevin said, the ducklings shouldn't be put out with the ducks until at least 6 weeks and the khakis will probably be aggressive to them at first. Only broody/new mother ducks will accept and care for babies.

as babies I keep them together .. but usually the ducks grow some much larger and faster they get more aggresive then I seperate them ..  They free range together but do not share a coop . But I live neer a creek and have lots of little shelters .. at about 4 weeks I watched a little duck pick up a smaller chick same age and shake the ba'jeepers out of the chick by a leg .. So I try to give them some seperate space..

How do you feed the ducklings enough niacin without giving the chicks too much? 

THat was my mom last time lol...but as of right now i've got two mallard ducklings in with 1 bronze turkey and when they turkey was smaller he ate probably half as much as the duck...and he just ate what he felt was necassary and the ducks ate the rest...or vice versa...but now they eat about the same amount of food.

I have 12 4 month old chickens and the n11 ducks that are about 3 months old with 4 Red Chanteclers that were raised with the ducks.. minus the water the Red Chanteclers think they are ducks and are always with their broody mates. My older chickens are semi cool with them occasionally they play the queen of the castle but not that often. The 4 month old Geese also dont have much of an issue with the ducks either.  But I have a fairly large area for them all to roam in and the Geese and ducks hang out in the stock tank together with no issues.