Duck help!

[nandnchickens]

I am looking to start raising ducks. We currently have 20 chickens with 28 more on the way. (So why not add more right!??) I just had a few questions for those duck and chickens owners out there...
1. Do you keep your ducks and chickens together? Do they get along pretty well?
2. Do your drakes try to mate with your chickens? We are having a problem with too many roosters tearing up my show hen feathers, so I don't need to add to the problem.
3. Do you feed your ducks and chickens the same feed?
4. Do your ducks get on the roosting bars with the chickens?
5. What are your favorite breeds? We are looking for some of the fancier breeds, but want some of the smallest due to limited space.
Any advice helps! Brand new to the duck world!! Thanks!

 

[Alaskan]

1. I did the first time I had ducks...

Ducks are much messier, and have much wetter poops. Again

They also need to fully submerge their head to drink, and they drink in such a way so that the water shoots all over. Not kidding. Chickens are very cute and neat drinkers.

So....I ate and got rid of all of those ducks (home grown duck is the best tasting meat in the world).

I now have ducks again (and added geese for the first time), but the ducks are in a duck area, and the geese are in a geese area.

It makes clean-up much better and easier, and makes me happier.

2. I have heard that that can be a problem, but when I had mine together, they never tried.

3. I don't remember any more if I fed them the same feed when they were all together. They can live on chicken feed, but it isn't the best choice, and you will NEED to get the ducks to eat Brewers Yeast (like the kind you put on popcorn, not the kind you use to make beer). I had to feed my ducklings non-medicated chick starter since my tiny town had no duck crumbles or baby duck feed. I just sprinkled the Nutritional Brewers Yeast on top and they did fine.

4. No, the ducks don't perch (unless you are talking about some odd wood duck or some such). The ducks I have now are Muscovy, and they fly, and like sitting up on fence posts, but they still prefer to sleep in a box, under a garden cart, or some nest like place. So, if you do want to keep them all together, this would be a good way to keep them happy together. Make a poop shelf that has chicken water and feed ON TOP, where only the chickens will go, and duck feed and water under the shelf, where only the ducks will go.

5. I like my muscovies more than I liked the ducks I had before (Swedish Blue and Khaki Campbell)
But, the muscovy aren't small.