Chickens beating up my ducks

[HeatherMo]

I just put my 5 week old ducks in the run with the chickens. I thought it was going well but then I noticed they started ganging up and chasing the ducks (there’s only 2 of them). My ducks are now missing some feathers so I moved them out again. They’ve been living next to each other for a couple weeks now so I thought I gave them enough time to get used to one another. Guess not. Do you think there’s any hope that they can live peacefully together? I’m feeling discouraged.

 

[Miss Lydia]

We had a member 2-3 yrs ago that put his ducklings in with his established flock about the same age as yours he lost some of his duckling the chickens were so brutal. I’d keep them separated. If you let your birds out to free range try them all together then but penning them together I wouldn’t do.

 

[HeatherMo]

Yeah, you may be right about that. I know people do it but I have a couple A-hole chickens that enjoy torturing ducklings. So sad.

 

[sourland]

At this point, monitored free ranging is all that I would allow. I would wait until the ducks are far more mature to try to fully integrate them. 5 week olds are still babies.

 

[PirateGirl]

Eventually the ducks will be bigger than the chickens... things may change.