Ducks vs chickens, or ducks AND chickens?

[blondiebee181]

......unless the ground is wet alot and then they will happily dabble littel mud pits in it. I find that filling the run and area around the pool with traction sand corrects this. Ducks are a lot of fun though, I would never trade them. I have both and my chickens are a lot of fun too, but there is just something about ducks that is so entertaining and they imprint as chicks, so if you are the first thing they see, they will always recognize you and even follow you around. I only hope that my neighbors find their quacking as endearing as I do, my Pekin drake was always louder than my chickens; and I do agree about the mess but a few management tricks are all you need to keep up with a few. I owned the 1 drake until about a week ago, I have 2 Runner females on the way and 5 chicken hens at the moment so for a larger flock I can't speak. Ducks are wonderful little pets, good luck!

 

[FireTigeris]

A loud drake??? How did you manage that, my drakes the four of them together in alarm mode are 1/2 as loud as any one of my ducks...

 

[blondiebee181]

I know, right?! I was confused too! Ithought he was a raspy female for a while because of the way he would carry on, until his curls started coming in. He would quack when I went out or called him, he would quack at noises, he would quack whenever other people were in the yard, he would quack while swimming or rooting for food, he'd quack in the coop...never unhappy, just always had something to say....Oh and especially if I would pick up one of the chickens, he'd give me an earful about that! I miss that guy...

 

[FireTigeris]

'Sounded' like a blast.

 

[zooweemama]

Muscovies are very quiet, I wish I had some.

Chickens break up the ground in gardens or lawns, ducks don't -

Ducks smoosh down and muddify things. I also now have goslings and I can see a distinct difference in all 3: chickens, ducks and geese. None of the do the same thing or really eat the same thing (forage wise)...the ducks like to dig holes in mud to find treasures and will happily run through grass looking for bugs. The chickens peck and scratch looking for treasures but they go about it entirely different. And the geese so far are not all the interested in bugs for the most part- they like to drink water, not dig in the mud and just trim tender greens of grass and weeds so far. I love the variety.

 

[nickie]

Muscovies are very quiet, I wish I had some. 

Chickens break up the ground in gardens or lawns, ducks don't - 

Ducks smoosh down and muddify things. I also now have goslings and I can see a distinct difference in all 3: chickens, ducks and geese. None of the do the same thing or really eat the same thing (forage wise)...the ducks like to dig holes in mud to find treasures and will happily run through grass looking for bugs. The chickens peck and scratch looking for treasures but they go about it entirely different. And the geese so far are not all the interested in bugs for the most part- they like to drink water, not dig in the mud and just trim tender greens of grass and weeds so far. I love the variety. 

Throw some turkeys in the mix, they are super fun and very friendly. Not to mention BIG. What they don't knock over or break trying to climb on and explore they eat (they did all 3 of those things to my freshly washed clothes on the line, pretty fancy panties are no match for 12 turkeys).

Anywho, back on topic. Someone on another thread said poultry tv is fantastic, you have your drama (chickens) and your comedy (ducks). Everyone can be loud, but my pekin takes the cake hands down on the biggest mouth. They all poop a lot. They all have their little quirks that really annoy me, but they are born to be that way.

If there is a concern about neighbors why not just ask them what they think?

 

[zooweemama]

Throw some turkeys in the mix, they are super fun and very friendly. Not to mention BIG. What they don't knock over or break trying to climb on and explore they eat (they did all 3 of those things to my freshly washed clothes on the line, pretty fancy panties are no match for 12 turkeys).
Anywho, back on topic. Someone on another thread said poultry tv is fantastic, you have your drama (chickens) and your comedy (ducks). Everyone can be loud, but my pekin takes the cake hands down on the biggest mouth. They all poop a lot. They all have their little quirks that really annoy me, but they are born to be that way.
If there is a concern about neighbors why not just ask them what they think?

Turkeys are already on my want list! hehe! Maybe next year since we have to build them their own coop. But it would be fun! We have 3 families of wild turkeys living on our property- they roost in our trees.

 

[lonebluetear]

Hello. I just found and joined this forum last night. We live in Tacoma. I'm contemplating chicken vs ducks. I read your post and was wondering how it all came out for you. Did you switch to ducks or stick to chickens? Do you prefer one over the other? Thank you. Nice weather we've been having! Enjoy the day.

 

[Duck Drover]

I find our ducks are so much easier to take care of but they free range in our fenced yard. The chickens also free range but they have to be let out of the coop every morning and shut in every evening. Then the coop is completely cleaned out every 2 weeks (compost pick-up is every other week and we can no longer compost our chicken poop due to the smell) while the duck poop just gets watered into the grass as fertilizer.

The ducks do like to drill holes into mud and they like to expand rain puddles as big as possible but now that the ground is dry the chickens are digging craters that are massive compared to duck dabbling. The chicken poop burns the grass while the duck poop fertilizes it so the ducks do far more for our yard than our chickens. Except for broody duck poop piles, which we have with brooding ducks on nests right now, the chicken poop stinks worse and it creates mounds while the duck poop is more liquid so it soaks in to the ground better and dries better because it is more of a pancake than a bisquit.

As far as noise goes, the hen ducks can make some noise because they are always alert to predators, day and night. Ours are pretty quiet during the day but when neighborhood cats prowl around in our yard at night they make enough noise to alert the entire flock to the danger. I would say with roosters crowing and hens making their egg song, chickens make more noise than the ducks.

If the feeder goes empty the ducks will make some noise while the chickens stand around waiting to be fed but we have 4' high gravity feeders made from 4" pipe so they don't go empty too often if we time our trips to the feed store right. The ducks are much better foragers than the chickens and they do a nice job weeding. Chickens have to scratch the ground everywhere they go so they are much harder on the vegetation in general but they break off the weeds while the ducks uproot them.

We socialize our ducks but we do not imprint them to us. Imprinted ducks will fuss far more than independent ducks and we have far too many ducks to cater to them 24/7. We have twice as many ducks as chickens but they take far less time and resources than the chickens.

I could more easily part with our chickens than with our ducks. The ducks are ideal for our climate since we live in the Seattle area of Washington state where it does rain quite a bit. When the weather is wet, the ducks are happy as can be while the chickens run for cover. We can't get the ducks to use their shelters because they prefer being in the open in a big duck pile for safety or they hang out under the trees. We had a hawk come down yesterday in our yard but there are too many trees and the crows usually run them off so they don't come around often.

Ducks have less health issues than chickens and they are so clean (mites or lice can't live on them when they are in the water so much). We don't have to do much to keep the ducks in good health while the chickens require more preventative treatments to keep them healthy.

Ducks have close bonds with each other and they look out for each other so they get along far better than chickens. We can have 3 drakes tag teaming a hen duck in order to gain her cooperation but two roosters will hurt each other over breeding rights (we have 2 Orpington roosters now because they were raised together but only one gets to be the flock leader). The drakes even hang out together while the hens are nesting and raising babies with no aggressive behavior. Because the hens choose the drakes and they have small breeding groups within the flock, the hens do a pretty good job keeping the peace by telling the other hens to stay away from her man, lol. While roosters tap hens and expect them to squat, ducks do a head bobbing thing to get in the mood and the drakes don't tear up the hens mounting their ladies the way roosters do. The ducks have a spirit of cooperation that chickens do not have.

When it comes to eggs, duck eggs are far superior to chicken eggs in baking (once you have made brownies with duck eggs you will never use chicken eggs again) but chicken eggs are lighter and fluffier in omlets. We keep both chickens and ducks because we like both eggs but then we hatch more than we eat. If we were to have to buy eggs, chicken eggs are cheap and easier to find so I would rather convert feed to duck eggs than chicken eggs.

Ducks live longer than chickens and they are productive longer. We have heritage chicken breeds rather than production breeds so our chickens live longer and lay longer than hatchery birds, which are bred to be disposable, but the ducks will still live longer lifespans to bring us more entertainment and enjoyment.

 

[Duck Drover]

After I replied I noticed this thread was started awhile back and then brought back but it seems like a topic that comes up regularly. We like to educate locals about the benefits of raising ducks so I have alot to say on the subject! Lol