BYC Never Mind, Ignore This Thread

[rainplace]

Storey's Guide to Raising Books is a fantastic place to start. It covers almost everything you need to know. You wanted advice from duck owners and most of us agree about that book.

Lou Horton also has some great info on his site:
http://www.acornhollowbantams.com/getting_started.cfm?id=48

The more you read, the better able you'll be able to form questions.

 

[suburbanduckmom]

There is a lot of advice on the web and you will have to find what works best for you and your ducks.

One topic that isn't covered as much is poop management.

Ducks poop a lot. Unimaginable amounts of poop. It is not like other pet waste. It doesn't smell as bad as chicken poop but it needs to be cleaned up so it doesn't attract flies.

Have a plan for what you will do with all of the poop once it is out of the pen. There is a lot of info on poo management in brooders but you will need to think about waste for your adult ducks.

We compost as much of it as possible with the bedding that gets cleaned up. A high power spray nozzle and extra long water hose cleans out the pen when it gets stinky. Water from the pond goes on the grass and waters the trees.

This may not be a perfect system but it works for us for now.

 

[classroomducks]

After scouring the websites for hours i finally found BYC. Up until 9 days ago I had no experience with poultry whatsoever, and now thanks to all these wonderful people, I have 8 healthy ducklings. What I suggest is use this forum and just go back in pages and just start reading. When you get a vast majority of the info you are looking for you can ask more specific questions and these people are an amazing wealth of knowledge. If it were possible to put everything youd ever need to know in one forum post this place would not exist. Best advice is to use the search tool for specific questions, and read read read for the rest. Good Luck!

 

[The Wolf Queen]

Dances With Ducks wrote: Are you planning to get some ducks? How many, what breed? Tell us more about what you are thinking about so we have a good starting place.

OK for my basic plan yes I would like to get a Muscovy trio with a male and two females. They will be in the same encloaure as my hens which is a large enough area with occasional free range (I have to supervise cuz of hawks xP ) What I plan to do is dig a hole in their coop and put in one of those cheap $8 pools from PetsMart. They will also have a metal water bowl and for now my girls have a hanging feeder that I do not think a duck would be able to eat out of so I will add a metal pan for feed as well. There is an in door and outdoor area that gets covered with tarps in the winter and is still accesable to the flock. I doubt ducks perch but there are 2 small and 2 large perches with 7 milk crate nests on the ground on the inside that have straw at all times and the rest of the ground occasionally has feed store shavings. They would be fed lay crumble January till some time when in the late summer when I move juvenile chickens to the big girl pen. At this point till January they will get fed Scratch. Feel free to correct anything I may need to fix, oh and I have a few mor questions. What is their longetivity, do they go potty in the water they swim in, and where can I find this magic book you speak of?
Thanks,

PS feel free to ask as many questions about my plan you can think of in case I forgot stuff, which I probably did lol.​

 

[Violet22]

If you put a pool on dirt, it will be one muddy wet mess around it, and I don't know how big your chicken coop is, but you don't want the whole coop wet. They will poop in the water, and it will need to be changed often.......I do mine every day. Even with just a water bowl and no pool, the area is going to be a wet poopy mess. I read all about the poop and wet before I got ducks and was still amazed at how much they poop and how they can make a dry area a poopy wet mess in 2 minutes!

I have my pool on thick rubber mats, I hose them off and drain the pool everyday. I have a 1,000 square foot pen, so even with all the hosing and water, there are still lots of dry areas with shavings. I couldn't imagine not having the rubber mats or some other surface around the pool.

Also......if you dig a hole how are you going to drain the pool? You will either have to put a drain in the bottom leading to pipe with a shut off which I plan to do some day, or else you will be having to lift it out of the hole to dump which would be a major pain.

 

[classroomducks]

Quote:

do they go potty in the water they swim in?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Do they go potty in the water they swim in....

Whether you call it potty poo or crap...they make a lot of it...A LOT!

They poo in the water they swim in, they poo in the water they drink, they poo in their food if it happens to be under their tail...they poo and then they eat it. They poo and then they walk in it...THEY ARE POO MACHINES!!!!!



Before i got my babies the guy at the feed store laughed and said, "Ducks?!? I hope you know what you are in for. Those little fellers defy physics. One ounce of food, one ounce of water, six ounces of crap!"

He wasnt joking....


Do they poo in the water they swim in....

 

[Dances with Ducks]

Yeah, I remember the first time I put my little babies in the bathtub. Of course within a few minutes one of them pooped. I quickly tried to clean it out. Then it happened again and I was ready to drain the tub when another one started to eat it!! I got them out real fast!!
Of course I did wise up about these strange habits, but it still was a shock when I realized they not only swam in and drank poopy water, but . . . now how shall I put this . . . made whoopy in it too!!

Wolf Queen there is some debate about how well chickens and ducks cohabitate. The most serious problem besides the messyness of ducks is the fact that drakes are known to attack the chicken hens. Muscovy drakes are particularly notorious for this. Maybe you want to set up a separate pen for your ducks?
Has anyone found ways to make this combination work?

 

[zatsdeb]

Quote:
if you raise them together from babies, they usually get along, and when I bring a new duck in the chickens are already used to the ducks and get along with them. as for the pooping in the water, thats what they do, they also mate in the water. little kiddie swimming pools are great for the ducks!

 

[LilRalphieRoosmama]

Cracking up, only because I've been there! The first time we put the duckies in the bathtub for their first swim, I scrubbed it out really good. Didn't want them contaminated by soap scum you know! OMG as soon as they hit the water they pooped. Then ate. Then I drained it, cleaned it, filled it up again. Rinse and repeat

If you have a normal suburban yard, you'll have to determine if you want ducks or grass because unless you keep them penned up, you can't have both. Mine free range with the chickens in my whole yard during the day (I have a little under 3/4 acre, fenced) and there are no problems unless you don't like mud. I have two tubs that I empty and refill each morning and I keep moving them around the yard. I didn't have to cut my back grass all summer but several areas that aren't totally Creeping Charlie (weed) are total mud. I have 12 ducks and 9 chickens. DBF keeps his runner ducks penned and fills it with woodchips. The tradeoff is that I really enjoy the ducks - the are my sanity and constant entertainment. I'm ok with the mud and just wear my Sloggers in the yard.

Oh - edited to add I found my book on Amazon.com. Well worth every penny.

 

[Dances with Ducks]

You can buy the book from the author himself http://holderreadfarm.com/literature_page/literature.htm
Just send a letter with a check. That's how I ordered from them

MAILING ADDRESS: Holderread Waterfowl Farm

P.O. Box 492

Corvallis, OR 97339

PHONE: 1-541-929-5338; Closed Sundays, Christmas & Thanksgiving