can ducks reduce chicken egg production?

[hennyjenn]

Right after our house sitter let the ducks sleep in the chicken coop (and we never separated them again since everyone seemed happy), the number of eggs our hens were laying reduced by half. Two months later, when the ducks were rehomed to a farm with other ducks, the hens' egg numbers went back up immediately. Coincidence, or is this something common? The drake wasn't harassing the hens, everyone seemed to get food and water when needed, the ducks stayed out of the coop all day. I'm not sure why they would have made a difference, but they did seem to.

 

[katharinad]

Interesting or coincidence? Could it be that the chicken reduced their egg production due to hot weather? Perhaps the dynamic was different with the ducks being around. Makes you wonder what makes birds tick. Still interesting observation.

 

[dieselgrl48]

Maybe I dunno.I have been raising chickens and ducks both for over 5 years.I have had bantam's roost in rafter's where my duck's house duck's free range and it has never affected either.But We intergrate our flock often and have never had too much conflict between the breed's.I have ducks now that are newly laying egg's and have 2 broodie's with babie's in old horse stall.They are all doing great.I have had turkey peacock geese guinea's ducks and chicken's Happy Barnyard.

 

[hennyjenn]

I at first wrote it off to hot weather, even though it had been hot for a few weeks before the ducks decided to join the hens, but when the egg numbers bounced back the second day after the ducks were gone, I really started to wonder. The first day they ate a ton of food, and the second day, they gave us a record number of eggs! We had two big feeders and four waterers for 17 birds, so I don't think the ducks were limiting how much they could eat or drink.