City rooster kept inside-good or bad plan?

[GardenerGal]

Daniel,
Khaki Campbells can fly some, so make sure the fence is 6' high or more. My KCs have never flown out, but I had a pair of East Indies ducks who did! I saw them a year later still living together as a pair, happily swimming in a coastal estuary less than a half mile from my home!

You definitely can use the "I dug a pond and wild/feral ducks got attracted to it. Now they refuse to leave" ploy.

You know the old "Field of Dreams" line ... "If you build it, they will come." Who's to say that wasn't about building a pond, and ducks coming to swim in it.

 

[GardenerGal]

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hahaha! My Cayuga duck is way louder than the khaki Campbells. If you ever saw reruns of the 1960s "Batman" TV series, there's a character called "The Penguin" (played by the wonderful Burgess Meredith). My duck sounds like him when he laughs: "HWA-HWA-HWA-HWAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

So loud. Where does all that sound come from in a duck???!! I'd expect an ostrich sized bird to have that kind of loudness.

 

[Wifezilla]

Yeah..how exactly do you cram 10 pounds of quack in a 5 lb duck anyway???

 

[GardenerGal]

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[EweSheep]

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[danielnv]

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If I hand raise them and make them tame, like pets, then they will hang around, won't they? There are duck ponds not very far from me on a golf course, so I hope they won't move there on me. My fence is only like 5 feet high.

 

[Wifezilla]

If you hand raise them, they would most likely stick around. There are places on my fence that are only a few feet high. They never leave...they know where the treats come from

 

[sred98]

Just wanted to say that I had a barred cochin bantam when I was a kid. He was a total house pet, with a bird cage inside. It was on the other side of the house from the bedrooms, and we covered him at night, just like the parrot and cockatiel. I don't remember him being particularly noisy. No neighbors ever complained and we were in the middle of a gated subdivision. I took him outside several times a day and he followed me all over the house. He was never around any other chickens, though, so I don't know if that would make him crow more. I think it might.

Good luck!

Shelly

 

[enola]

Someone mentioned that they had gotten 5 guineas . . . . .

I love guineas, don't get me wrong, and I wish I could have some here. But, only someone that has owned guineas has any idea how much noise they can make !

I got mine because they are the best watch dogs EVER ! They sound off at anything that is not normal. I had a hawk that was preying on my chickens, we had coyotes that wandered all around the place and I was tired of neighbors sneaking up on me. (Our place was REAL secluded and I didn't like company if my husband wasn't home.)

Guineas roost in trees and will even sound off at night if something is prowling around the ol' homestead, so the coyotes stayed in the woods, far away from the livestock. Hawks didn't stand a chance at getting either chickens or guineas, they always sounded off when one was spotted. They could hear a vehicle a LOOOOOOONG time before it could be seen coming up the mountain to our farm.

If the guineas were hollering, there was usually a reason.

They hollered if the farm dog went too far from the house. They hollered if a thunderstorm was coming. They KNEW what field all the different animals should be in, if one was out wandering, they hollered. They would even holler if one of the sheep went into labor out in the field. They hollered when the heifers came into heat and rode each other.....

The moral to my rambling is, they will be the death of you in the city ! Or they will at least drive you insane !

But, maybe you don't live in the city.......

 

[GardenerGal]

Daniel,
I agree with you and Wifezilla that if you hand raise them they are pretty likely to stick around. I've never met a genuinely domestic breed of duck that did not prefer getting free meals and treats to having to grub around in the wild for food!

But I still recommend having as high a fence as you can, and covering it with heavy grade fencing mesh/wire, more to keep the predators out. Coyotes are notoriously good leapers and climbers of fences. I actually have to cover my waterfowl pen because foxes, raccoons and coyotes are not daunted by even a 7' high fence! And they do live in the 'burbs and city.