can I keep running ducks with my chickens?

[dianaross77]

Quote:
That's because they were doing it wrong!

 

[dkosh]

I keep a goose with all my chickens and sheep and they all get along fine. They occassionally pull eachothers feathers and the the sheep headbutt the goose sometimes but the goose pulls wool. They act like siblings. They fight at times but generally get along. By the way...the goose likes to swim in the sheep water which doesn't make the sheep or my DH very happy.

 

[greekbioguy]

i can understand that people may not be able to keep birds separate and they may love them and take care of them the best they can,i can respect that. what i cant respect is people having a strong opinion on a subject they have no idea about when at the same time every educated person on the subject will tell them they could not be more wrong.
the answer to weather you should keep ducks with chicken is yes you could if you had no other choice but ideally you should not
i guess you are all top experts on poultry keeping and the views of the real experts mean nothing to you. people don't need to go to university study and dedicate their lives on their science the just need to ask their grandmother and they will know it all . i am a scientist i have learned that only facts stated by other scientists can be true.opinions stated by other people grandmothers ,friends ,people in the nearby farm or whatever are their own personal opinions and can only be true if they agree with scientific data.
even the fact that keeping ducks with chicken is illegal in a whole continent is not enough proof for you to ring a bell
at least you can feel good with yourselves .
bliss is gold
by the way has anybody found any articles supporting your views ?? keep looking
its funny to hear people saying that they did it and they had no problem. its like being a smoker and since you don't have lung cancer yet you can say that smoking does not cause cancer so the idea is "look at me i smoke and i am healthy'' so it is obvious that ''you can smoke all you like its a healthy habit'' dont listen to those scientist guys ''my grandfather smoked all his life and he had no problem''
i am glad the world does not work this way ,we would still be living in caves otherwise still trying to invent the use of fire

 

[duckking]

Healthy, happy, quacky, clucky, consistently awesome egg laying, friendly, amusing ducks and chickens......that's all I need. What I see and experience is all good. My vet has checked them all and says they are doing great and he specializes in poultry/water and wild fowl. I think we're all good.

 

[greekbioguy]

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ask him if it would be better if you kept them separate, see what he says

 

[duck_shepherdess]

Perhaps you'd appreciate the observations of a fellow scientist.

Quote:
There is an expression I am fond of: Citation Needed
In more academic terms: please cite your sources
I think its only fair that you enlighten us with some citations of articles so that we can examine the evidence for ourselves. Evidence is the difference between science and dogma. Don't rail against the latter if you're not prepared to do justice to the former.


While you're citing articles about the dangers of keeping ducks and chickens together, keep in mind another age old piece of science advice:
Control your variables.

If, as others have pointed out, the conditions studied are overcrowded industrial facilities then those studies may not be relevant to the question at hand. If, as others have also pointed out, they are judging by something other than the longevity of the birds, then you can't necessarily extrapolate the information to conclude that the lifespan of the birds is adversely affected by keeping different species together.
A similar point goes for the observation that "an entire continent" has made it illegal to keep ducks and chickens together. Apparently the purpose is not to protect the well being of the ducks (or the chickens) the purpose is to contain disease vectors. Even if we were to ignore that point, I suggest that you stick to actual science rather than the observations of people making laws. For all we know, they just asked their grandmother's advice too!

I think you've attempted to make some good points about duck nutrition, and you've managed to ignore other people addressing those points.

I'd also like to briefly address the roles of anecdotal evidence in elucidating the differences between correlation and causation. I'll take your smoking example again because its a very good one. Smoking doesn't cause cancer. Yes, I'm a scientist and I said that smoking doesn't cause cancer. Stay with me here. What it DOES do is cause you to inhale carcinogens. Those carcinogens go on to do genetic damage, that genetic damage may or may not go on to CAUSE cancer. For this reason smoking is CORRELATED with cancer. For this reason there is anecdotal evidence that a smoker CAN live just as long as a non-smoker, provided they have the appropriate genetic makeup and a bit of luck. (Note: I am not recommending this, you'd just be gambling with your life, but that's a whole other discussion) Anyway, the point is, even if you found a study specifically addressing the issue of longevity in small, home flocks you still need to look at the causes. If the main problem is that the two groups are attacking each other then, once again as other people have already stated, you can make your decisions based on the temperaments of the birds involved. I'm going to stop before I get into an off topic discussion of statistics and decision making. PM me if you're curious I'll recommend some books.


I'd like to talk about your last statement about how we'd still be living in caves under some hypothetical circumstances but I've read it three times and although I can decipher most of your post for the life of me I really cant understand what you're trying to say there.

ETA: Sincerely,
Duck Shepherdess,
BA Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Reed College 2008

 

[greekbioguy]

so my fellow scientist .what you are trying to say to me is that i am wrong . science should be based on logical assumptions with rational results . what i mean is i hope as a scientist you know that there are cross species diseases and parasites ? if we agree up to here we must logically come to the conclusion that having different species and having a larger disease and parasite collection to choose from we might find more of these cross species agents. are you following me up to now ?
so by having more species together we have more chances of a disease or parasite problem .http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/poultry/Biosec.pdf
so u must also agree that unless ducks and chicken free range (if they are locked all the time) they can not be safely eat the same feed just go to any poultry nutrition page and see that their needs are not the same
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/poulsci/tech_manuals/feeding_ducks.html for chicken cheque the forum sites
then based on these two facts you come to the conclusion that it is right to keep different species together although you increase you chances of things going wrong.i did not state ever in my messages that keeping ducks with chicken is sth done by bad people that don't take care of their pets but i can not agree with advising sbd new that doing sth that can be wrong without advising him or her that the more orthodox and on the safe side way is not to to what we did no matter if we got lucky he or her may be unlucky
my experience is that living things can be unpredictable and we must always be on the safest side possible or at least know what that safe side is and at least try to advise new people in the best way we can .that's the point of people asking .unless you believe there is some supernatural power that grands good luck to anybody the instant they join the site so nothing bad will happen to their flock. my view is that you must always expect bad luck when living organisms are concerned and you can never be safe enough ussually everything that can go wrong does.
so i guess all the people that got so much offended and attacked me personally if sbd came and offered them a new separate coop for their ducks they would refuse it and go the old keeping together good for the bird way ???
people should not be offended by the truth. if people said ''yes you can keep them together but it is safer to keep them separate " it would be nice advise
as far as politics are concerned i could not agree with you more i must also congratulate on the political impressive speech that had nothing to do with science but had nice words and phrases to impress. science is not just impressive words. its common logic .it is preferable to keep any species of animals separate i guess unless they are symbiotic organisms,with plants its a totally diferent story

Stavros Georgoudakis
Bachelors :Environmental Biology (2002 University Of Wales, Aberystwyth)
masters : Environmental impact assessment (2003 University Of Wales aberyswyth)

 

[TLWR]

Let's throw another scientists thoughts in while we are tossing crap around.
Based on all the evidence and studies that say you shouldn't keep separate species together, it would be a logical conclusion to say that it is probably best to extend that to all sharing space of differing species? So shouldn't house those cats and dogs together or probably shouldn't have any house pets at all?
I'm sure somebody somewhere has studied it, but I really don't have the desire to look it up to see if it has actually been done and what the results were. But I feel comfortable with my educated guess that a study somewhere says it isn't healthy to mix kids and dogs that step foot outside or something. Dog could have stepped in something nasty and kid touches the dog - now the kid has that something nasty. Just giving my thought pattern since I'm too lazy to look up any research.


And "because an entire country says it is illegal" means squat to most people... just because a government says something is illegal, doesn't actually make it 'bad'
Was a time not too long ago that blacks had little rights in the US and women weren't allowed to vote. Civil rights have evolved.
I'm sure care and feeding of animals, ducks included, will continue to evolve as well.


Share your view - based on scientific fact or not and be done. Continually bashing people over the head in this thread with your view (based in scientific fact or not) isn't going to convince anybody to listen to you and do things your way. My experience has shown people don't like being bashed over the head physically or with information and they don't typically like being told they are killing their animals because they are doing something in a way some "expert" believes is wrong.

 

[greekbioguy]

Quote:
i actually liked the heated argument i guess we agree that we disagree .although i still believe you have not realised what i am trying to say ,but instead everybody attacked me with grandmother stories and took things personally i never offended anybody personally i always talk generally. you missed the ideally part of my arguments (ducks ideally should be kept separate) we don't live in an ideal world . but we all try our best i hope
based on the furry against me sbd with no knowlege on the matter would quess that ducks should only be kept with chicken and never seperatelly.
not a country the EU is not one country (thank God) .
about the kid and dogs or animals in general. there is a study in germany that proves that keeping animals protects your children from allergies . kids raised in farm environments are healthier and have a 75-80 % less chanses of becoming alergic later in life. please dont keep your children away from animals and nature no matter what anybody says

 

[TLWR]

i never offended anybody personally

That's just the thing - you don't get to determine who was offended by what you wrote. The people reading it get to determine that.​