Duckings and Chicks - best practices so that they love each over

[BlueMoon]

We're new to ducks and have just mixed in two day old calls and a week old Anocona with 22 chicks a week old or less. Right now, they're in a 3 x 3 brooder with a water dish, a water fount and grain trough.

Are there any hints or tricks to integrating them? The chicks keep poking at the ducks beaks and the ducklings peck at the chicks eyes. I reckon this is just curiosity or establishing dominance...but we've had enough chick mortality this week and I really just want them all to get along well.

 

[MissPrissy]

That is a lot of chicks and ducks in your brooder. You need a larger brooder.

Ducks like to play in water and they are going to make a mess out of everything very quickly.

Chicks don't like wet mess. They won't be happy. Ducks love wet and messy and will win out over the chicks and keep it wet and messy.

You and the ducks would be better served to give them a place of their own.

In less than a week your brooder is going to be way too small for your chicks as well. Over crowding will eventually lead to pecking issues and even sickness.

If you have lost chicks this week already do you know how they died? The cause of mortality? Did you sterilize the brooder? Are you treating the chicks with any medications?

Ducks cannot eat medicated chick feed.

 

[southernhen]

Miss Prissy...I don't mean to but in, but I just had a turkey and a duck hatch and some chicks,another duck and turkey are pipping now.... can I put them in the same brooder right now? And feed them the medicated chick food?

 

[MissPrissy]

Ducks cannot have medicated feed. They eat far too much and will become toxic. If you use non-medicated feed you can keep them together a few days. The chicks will help teach the turkey poults how to eat and drink - which is a plus!

The ducks and turkeys would be better on a gamebird starter or a BlueSeal brand all in one that offers a little more potein but is for chicks, ducklings, goslings and poults.

Ducks are far more messy than most people imagine. Chickens don't like water and ducks love it. After the first week or so they get super messy and you'll find you have less work on your hands if you just separate them and give them the environment they thrive best on.

 

[southernhen]

oh no...I live in the country 2 hours to town and that is all I have until tues what can I feed the duck until then. Tues I will go and get the gamebird starter. I have been feeding the 23 wk old turkey med food too. sooo I will change him also.

Why does the newly hatched turkey take sooooo long to stand and stop falling over back side up? I know they are stupid!

 

[MissPrissy]

Turkeys aren't stupid. They just need more care because they are far more fragile. A good momma turkey is worth her weight in gold. Once they get going they are far more hardy but initially turkey poults are very fragile babies. Most people don't realize this. Turkeys may out grow chickens and even be bigger faster but they are big babies longer and need attn and care to get them to grow up strong and healthy.

The ducks - chop lettuce less than 1/4 inch bites and fresh green grass chopped and float it a dish of water. They will LOVE it. You will need to keep a good bit out for them at all times as they eat alot.

I feed my ducks and geese a mix of finely chopped greens and yogurt twice a day. They come and stand and look up at me as if to say, "Hey, mom, where's my shake?" LOL

 

[southernhen]

Please forgive me!!

the turkey thing...that was what my momma used to say as she was running outside in the rain to get the turkeys under the cover and keep them from looking up.. when I was growing up. This is the first time I hatched or raised any turkeys! As a matter of fact this is the first time I hatched out anything in my life!!! I am not counting the cockatiels babies I hand fed.

Ducks.... cool, I just picked some lettuce out of the garden yesterday. yogurt...plain or strawberry?

Thank you for helping me!!!!! I have learned so much !!!!

 

[sara]

I don't think ducks and chickens love each other. People do keep them together, but I personally think they are better cared for seperately.

 

[DuckLady]

Ours all run together now they are grown and they pretty much keep to them selves. They are only really together at night when theya re locked up in their pen, but even then, the chickens are roosting and the ducks and geese are just lounging around.

In the brooder, they absolutely need to be separate. Differnent feed and water needs and habits make it best for the chicks. (The ducklings don't care who gets wet as long as they get to!

)

 

[BlueMoon]

Wow - thanks!

They all are on non medicated feed. I'll chop up the lettuce - great idea since it's about to bolt anyway.

The reason I lost seven chicks was sheer stupidity on my part. I had borrowed a friends broody hen - an evil black sex link who hissed at me continuously. She was only needed for about three days, as another hen left before her clutch hatched. I didn't trust her. My day olds arrived (from Hoovers and they were fabulous) a day early and I didn't have room for them elsewhere, so I popped them in with the broody hen and her now two two-day old chicks. Monitored really carefully for about 12 hours, but them had to go to a doctors appointment and the friend who took me was going to take her broody back.

You know that feeling like you have to get home NOW? Well, let's just say the stop at the supermarket and the drugstore was dumb, but having lunch out was really stupid when that voice was singing.

The broody hen went bezerk and killed three of the chicks and had left four for dead (all six little yellow fuzzy butts and one silver laced Wyandotte). Two of the four died minutes later and I kept the other two alive for about twelve hours. It was really sad, but truthfully, I could have lost all 27 and I really learned my lessons - NO psycho hens, EVER, and ALWAYS listen to that voice.

I had planned on getting one duckling this week and another group when they hatch next week. I think my DH felt really sorry for me and that's when the two call ducks were ok'd.

Anyhow, sterilizing didn't seem necessary, and I put down burlap onto top of the shavings so the ducks would stop eating them.

I know the brooder will be too small in about a week. There is an awesome Java mother hen with eight nearly three week old chicks in the 6' x 3' partition. I was thinking about removing the partition (9' x 3') and seeing how that goes. I'm home much of next week, so I can monitor things really carefully then! And I can drive again, so when that voice speaks, I'll listen!