A chicken and duck house design for hot weather

Jen333

In the Brooder
9 Years
Dec 12, 2010
30
0
22
Hi, for all of those out there that have had success with raising ducks and chickens together, what type of coop/housing design did you use? Where did you place the nesting boxes (high, low, or both)? Do the ducks need to be separated if we let them brood their eggs? We are planning to get several baby chicks (3-4 no roosters) and a few Cayuga ducklings (2-3) as well. I have spent a lot of time on this site looking at all the different coops, which by the way are very nice! We live in California where the summers get very hot. Any advice on how to build the coop to keep it cooler or what direction to face it?

Lots of questions because we are trying to prevent costly mistakes. I know many of you have a lot of experience I’m hoping to learn from. Thanks in advance for any shared experiences, advice, as well as pictures!
 
Good luck because I've searched high and low for duck coop/pen and no luck so far
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. But you can use chicken coop or a shed if you like, your choise. I have a 7x7 plastic shed and I also built them duplex coop, thinking ducks can go to the bottom one and chickens on the second floor, ducks never bothered to sleep their other then laying their eggs there sometimes. Sometimes chickens would sleep at the bottom floor. Duck need water, not just for drinking but they love to swim. You can have a kitty pool. I bought them a 165 gallon pond for them from Homedepot, now I have to figure out how to do the drainage. I read somewhere that when ducks eat, you'll notice that they drink water right after they eat that's because they have to clear their nostirls otherwise it gets infected. I know this from my own experience, ducks don't need a nesting box. They will lay their eggs in the coop or in their run. Sometimes I let them free range and never once did they lay their egg out there. They normally lay early in the morning. And I would say you need a lot of ventilation. Hope this helps a little bit. Good luck and keep us posted on what you decide to do.
 
I have my duck in with my grow out roosters. She has a wadeing pool and she roosts with them. It was her choice. When I went to feed in the different pens she always went with me. She kept wanting to stay longer and longer in their pen till finally she just stayed there. I leave the door to their pen open while I am putting the feed in the pans. She can leave whenever she wants but she never does. I think her roosting with them is goofy looking but she seems to enjoy it.

Their pen is 16 X 16 covered and wire on two sides.

Lanae
 
Thanks to both of you!
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I'll try to post what we decide to do. It might be a little while, still deciding!
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Unfortunately, I don't have nor I have seen a chicken and duck house design. My ducks prefer to not go into any chicken house or pen that I have. They like sleeping on the ground or flying on the landing boards over the fence at night or flying on the 3 ft tall spools that I have. We are fortunate to not have any predators. In all the years of having ducks AND geese sleep on the ground outside the coops (on 1 acre property), I have not lost 1 yet to a predator. (Thank goodness)

The ducks lay their eggs in the chicken's nesting boxes. The nesting boxes are about 2 feet off of the ground. We let them lay and set in the nesting house. When the ducklings are born, we move them to private/secure quarters.

We keep kiddie pools all over the property for them to swim and stay cool.

Our set up works very well.
 
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Do they use a ramp or something to get up to the nesting boxes? I'm not sure if I need one for cayugas or if it would be helpful to them. Do you let them hatch eggs in the house too? Also, do you keep mommy & ducklings together in the seperate quarters after hatched or just ducklings? Thanks for the information! If any one has pictures, that would be great...I'm a visual learner
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Do they use a ramp or something to get up to the nesting boxes? I'm not sure if I need one for cayugas or if it would be helpful to them. Do you let them hatch eggs in the house too? Also, do you keep mommy & ducklings together in the seperate quarters after hatched or just ducklings? Thanks for the information! If any one has pictures, that would be great...I'm a visual learner
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No, they don't use a ramp. I have milk crates in front of the nesting boxes. They jump on the milk crates, then jump in the nesting boxes. I only let them hatch their eggs in the nesting house where the nesting boxes are. I have a building where I have about 18 nesting boxes for both the chickens and ducks. After the eggs are hatched in the nesting house, they are immediately moved to another location for safety and comfort reasons.

See pics below where nesting boxes are located.
6612_nesting_boxes_with_chickens.jpg

6612_nesting_boxes_with_ducks.jpg


When the eggs are laid and hatched in the nesting house, I immediately removed the mama AND ducklings to another secure and safe area. It is either in the stalls (pics below) or a large chain link dog kennel that I have that is designed to be predator proof. They stay together for as long as the mama will take care of them and let them follow her which is usually for about 6 months or so.

These eggs were laid in one of these stalls below under the egg pic. The mama built her nest and stayed in this stall until all of the eggs hatched. I would let them out every day when I got home to walk around and play in the kiddie pool with supervision. When play time was over, they were herded back into their stall and locked up.
6612_duck_eggs.jpg

6612_duck_babies.jpg

6612_feeding_area.jpg


So this is my set up. It may not be the best but it definitely works for me. I have not lost 1 single duck or duckling to a predator, unknown reason, etc. I have a 98% hatch rate. I have never had any unknown duckling deaths or other duck deaths. Thank goodness. In 2010, my Muscovies hatched about 65 ducklings. I currently have 35 Muscovies and many are laying eggs again. I pick thier eggs daily. I don't let them set on any eggs because I have too many ducks at this time.
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I currently have customers that buy my duck eggs for baking.

I hope that this helped you. Please feel free to ask any questions.
 
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Wow, great information!! Thanks for sharing and the pictures too. That helps a lot. I'll share this with my husband and I'm sure he will say thank you too! So excited to start building. Now waiting for hubby's days off. I might be asking more questions when we start the building project. Thanks again! Oh, I do have one more question now, Do hawks and owls harm/kill full grown ducks? We plan to have the coop and run predator proof but was hopeing to let the ducks room the yard during the day. Those are the big predators we have to worry about here.
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I wish that I had the answer to that question but I don't. Maybe someone else will chime in with a reply. I can only say that I have never had any problems with hawks or owls and my ducks.
 

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