BorealRanch
Chirping
Looking for some advice on introducing birds to other birds. We have some chickens and ducks that free range that we intend to keep over winter. More specifically 7 ducks and 2 chickens (1 ee hen and one barred rock rooster). We also have chickens and turkeys in tractors in another area of our property so they haven't had much introduction to our freerangers. We do plan to keep a breeding trio of turkeys and about 5 Rhode island red hens and one rooster. All to ultimately free range and winter with our current free range flock. These birds are all about the same age but as I said haven't really interacted with each other yet. I was thinking of pulling the tractors over to where the freerangers coop is and letting them hang out with each other for a couple of weeks. Do you think this would be the best way to introduce them all to each other to avoid conflict?
Second part to my question is regarding introducing a duckling... I hatched eggs last week and much to my dismay only have one duckling... one out of 36 eggs hatched (in still learning). The last hatch I did only one egg hatched as Well and I was able to find a duckling around the same age to keep it company. This time around I won't be able to get another duckling. I don't want him/her to get lonley. We are handling him/her as much as possible but think SOME sort of interaction with ducks is needed ((when we introduced the two little ducklings to as higher. Last time, the one I hatched was actually scared of the other duckling because she had never seen another duck before)... I was thinking of using a clear rubermaid-like tote as an almost portable brooder and take the duckling to our big ducks to have "supervised play dates".. thoughts?
Pic is of our free range flock
If this is too much for one post let me know and I'll take it down
Second part to my question is regarding introducing a duckling... I hatched eggs last week and much to my dismay only have one duckling... one out of 36 eggs hatched (in still learning). The last hatch I did only one egg hatched as Well and I was able to find a duckling around the same age to keep it company. This time around I won't be able to get another duckling. I don't want him/her to get lonley. We are handling him/her as much as possible but think SOME sort of interaction with ducks is needed ((when we introduced the two little ducklings to as higher. Last time, the one I hatched was actually scared of the other duckling because she had never seen another duck before)... I was thinking of using a clear rubermaid-like tote as an almost portable brooder and take the duckling to our big ducks to have "supervised play dates".. thoughts?
Pic is of our free range flock

If this is too much for one post let me know and I'll take it down
