Over winter I am keeping 10 chickens, 10 ducks, 2 American Buff geese and 3 Royal Palm turkeys. They co-exist in a 16 X 20 portion of a pole barn at night (and mid-winter), and a fenced acre with lots of shrubs, some open prairie, and a couple of man-made ponds. Egg production varies a lot with breed--my Runner ducks and Welsh Harlequin ducks lay as well as the best chickens--the Cayuga ducks lay a lot less, but their grey-black eggshells are pretty funny. I prefer the duck eggs, but I have a harder time selling them to finicky eaters. The geese and turkeys are not very prolific layers, but I really prefer their meat, and I really enjoy interacting with them.
I have come to grips with the ducks and geese messing up their water by keeping two 5 gallon buckets filled in the coop, and just expecting the area around it to be wet. I use a deep straw litter method, and just throw more straw on the old wet stuff every few days. When I travel, I just put a couple of extra 5 gallon buckets of water in the barn, which means someone has to come care for them every third day.
The chickens always go in to roost in the barn early every evening. Everyone else comes in later, but they have been trained to come in on their own. I still have to tell the ducks to go inside when the pond isn't frozen, but I rarely have to herd them in anymore. They learned after a week or two.
A big advantage of the waterfowl here in Minnesota is that they don't have combs that get frostbitten. I don't heat the barn, just their water buckets. I keep a couple of roosters, and even those with small or rose combs occasionally (at -20F) get frostbitten spots.
Another advantage all my poultry have over chickens is that they forage for more of their food (until snowcover makes this impossible for three months of the year). Some chicken breeds have foraged OK for me--Chanteclers, Rhode Island Reds, and Dominiques come to mind; other chickens, like my Polish hens, rarely go far from the barn.
I have come to grips with the ducks and geese messing up their water by keeping two 5 gallon buckets filled in the coop, and just expecting the area around it to be wet. I use a deep straw litter method, and just throw more straw on the old wet stuff every few days. When I travel, I just put a couple of extra 5 gallon buckets of water in the barn, which means someone has to come care for them every third day.
The chickens always go in to roost in the barn early every evening. Everyone else comes in later, but they have been trained to come in on their own. I still have to tell the ducks to go inside when the pond isn't frozen, but I rarely have to herd them in anymore. They learned after a week or two.
A big advantage of the waterfowl here in Minnesota is that they don't have combs that get frostbitten. I don't heat the barn, just their water buckets. I keep a couple of roosters, and even those with small or rose combs occasionally (at -20F) get frostbitten spots.
Another advantage all my poultry have over chickens is that they forage for more of their food (until snowcover makes this impossible for three months of the year). Some chicken breeds have foraged OK for me--Chanteclers, Rhode Island Reds, and Dominiques come to mind; other chickens, like my Polish hens, rarely go far from the barn.
