Ducks vs chickens, or ducks AND chickens? - Page 2

......unless the ground is wet alot and then they will happily dabble littel mud pits in it. I find that filling the run and area around the pool with traction sand corrects this. Ducks are a lot of fun though, I would never trade them. I have both and my chickens are a lot of fun too, but there is just something about ducks that is so entertaining and they imprint as chicks, so if you are the first thing they see, they will always recognize you and even follow you around. I only hope that my neighbors find their quacking as endearing as I do, my Pekin drake was always louder than my chickens; and I do agree about the mess but a few management tricks are all you need to keep up with a few. I owned the 1 drake until about a week ago, I have 2 Runner females on the way and 5 chicken hens at the moment so for a larger flock I can't speak. Ducks are wonderful little pets, good luck!

A loud drake??? How did you manage that, my drakes the four of them together in alarm mode are 1/2 as loud as any one of my ducks...

I know, right?! I was confused too! Ithought he was a raspy female for a while because of the way he would carry on, until his curls started coming in. He would quack when I went out or called him, he would quack at noises, he would quack whenever other people were in the yard, he would quack while swimming or rooting for food, he'd quack in the coop...never unhappy, just always had something to say....Oh and especially if I would pick up one of the chickens, he'd give me an earful about that! I miss that guy...

'Sounded' like a blast.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FireTigeris 

Muscovies are very quiet, I wish I had some. 

 

Chickens break up the ground in gardens or lawns, ducks don't - 

Ducks smoosh down and muddify things. I also now have goslings and I can see a distinct difference in all 3: chickens, ducks and geese. None of the do the same thing or really eat the same thing (forage wise)...the ducks like to dig holes in mud to find treasures and will happily run through grass looking for bugs. The chickens peck and scratch looking for treasures but they go about it entirely different. And the geese so far are not all the interested in bugs for the most part- they like to drink water, not dig in the mud and just trim tender greens of grass and weeds so far. I love the variety. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by nickie 


Throw some turkeys in the mix, they are super fun and very friendly. Not to mention BIG. What they don't knock over or break trying to climb on and explore they eat (they did all 3 of those things to my freshly washed clothes on the line, pretty fancy panties are no match for 12 turkeys).
Anywho, back on topic. Someone on another thread said poultry tv is fantastic, you have your drama (chickens) and your comedy (ducks). Everyone can be loud, but my pekin takes the cake hands down on the biggest mouth. They all poop a lot. They all have their little quirks that really annoy me, but they are born to be that way.
If there is a concern about neighbors why not just ask them what they think?

Turkeys are already on my want list! hehe! Maybe next year since we have to build them their own coop. But it would be fun! We have 3 families of wild turkeys living on our property- they roost in our trees.