If you do not pay close attention and feed plenty of food, your chickens will starve to death. Ducks devour all the food. The will also destroy your chicken pen.
hmmmmmm,
I had one drake and 4 muscovy hens reside w/my chooks thru part of last winter. The ducks and chooks get along fine as long as you have enough room. The only problem we had was when the drake would set himself in front of the pop door not allowing the chooks back in. I had to smack his bottom a few time and tell him to move.
He learned.
As far as the food goes, of course you have to feed them more.... you have extra mouths and bellies to fill. I find my chooks eat WAAAAAAY more than my Scovies. I'm astonished at times at how much those chooks eat compared to all my Scovies.
If your friends chooks starved to death then I would have to wonder how much food they were putting out in the first place. You should be putting out as much as they are going to eat in a day/night if not more.
Ducks DO make more mess with their water and wet poo as well as seem to chew on everything.
I separated my Scovies and chooks for that reason though I have a pretty splash Ameraucana Roo that hangs with the Scovies all day because he thinks he's a duck, sigh!!, well .... he is generally the same color as most of them & he does go in to roost every night. I also get a few Scovy gals that cross over into the chook yard and hang w/the chooks on and off.
