nasty ducks

[woogie g3]

ok so i have had plenty of chickens before but no ducks...so i decided i wanted some ducks. i fixed a very nice pen even had a little pool in it. but my dad says that ducks are horribly nasty. so nasty that its not worth having ducks....is this true and should i get ducks??? thanks for reading and comments are needed

 

[BirdBrain]

Ducks are messy, but they are so adorable that the mess doesn't matter much. Get the ducks and tell your Dad, "no duck eggs for you."

 

[Where The Wild Things Are]

I have both chickens and ducks. I don't believe that the ducks make a bigger mess than the chickens. My chickens are a heck of a lot more destructive than my ducks. If I had it to do over, I would just have ducks...lots and lots of ducks.

 

[woogie g3]

thanks for the info!

 

[katharinad]

It's all a question of setup and space. The more space the less of a mess. Also keep the water at least 3 feet away from the food and it will also be less messy. You will have figure out what works and what doesn't.

 

[Blooming chicks]

I defininately agree with katharinad--it's all in the set up. I have my ducks night time enclosure lined with rocks to keep it dry and for easy cleaning (in this enclosure they have a duck house lined with pine shavings, but water and food stay outside house--they rarely use it so it stays pretty clean). During the day they free-range. I would never keep them with my chickens--my chickens are a lot cleaner than my ducks.

 

[BirdBrain]

I am with the others who would rather have ducks than chickens. I was brooding 50 chickens and 5 ducks last summer. I told my DH that if I knew before ordering how sweet, funny and cute the ducks were, I would have gotten all ducks.

 

[Godsgrl]

Ducks are adorable and funny, but oh my gosh the mess, and the smell.

There is nothing worse than a dirty duck pool. When you dump the water, and get to the mud and muck on the bottom,

that about says it all.

 

[duckking]

We LOVE our ducks. We love our chickens too. Our ducks are locked up in their house at night. Actually, they voluntarily go into to their house as soon as it starts to get dark and we lock them in before we go to bed....lots of predators around here....but more because I would worry about them. I keep their food and water outside the house as well and even though the 4 of them are in there at night, it's really easy to clean it out and not messy at all.

Maybe it's because I had them in the house for almost 2 months before I kicked them out. Now THAT was nasty! Now that they're outside, everything is simple in comparison!

They also have the sweetest personalities. None have shown any aggression to any of us and they don't even run from strangers. They love to come up and chew on anyone's shoelaces. Equal opportunity ducks.

 

[Omniskies]

One of the best things about ducks is that dirty, nasty, gunky poo water. Store it and let it age for a couple of days in the sun then pour the "tea" onto your plants. You will have carrots as long as your arms, beans that take over your yard, and tomatoes that I swear will try to start conversations with your corn.

Gardens are a great excuse to get more ducks. Then once your plants are a pretty good size, let any growing ducklings run through and munch on bugs. They will gobble up anything in sight: snails, slugs, beetles and any other creepy crawlies they spot.