Ducks with chickens

[ddstiriz]

I know i know ducks are messy, HOWEVER i see alot of people that keep them together. How do you make this work? Can they eat the same food even if i have home made feeders out of pvc and buckets? I have a very large run a coop that is pretty predator proof. There is a steel roof over the run and coop i am thinking of adding a 8 by 14 section onto the run that i would have the duco pond with a filter system as well as pea gravel around the pound. And covering that section. Do you think this would work out? The additon would be aways away from the coop itself.

 

[TheTwoRoos]

It can,but they will have some ground rules. Probably gonna be lots of fighting,but nobody should get killed.

 

[TLWR]

My ducks and chicken eat the same food. While my ducks don't really seem to like the chickens, there has never been a fight and they share the yard and pen perfectly fine.

 

[TheTwoRoos]

You must rthem all flock.All flock feeds,chicks,laying hens,roosters,geese,ducks etc.Laying crumbles/pellets is aonly good for "Laying" Hens.

 

[sethmcneil]

We tried keeping ducks and chickens together but it turned into Bloods vs Crips, so we ended that experiment. I know people somehow manage to pull it off, but it got ugly for us.

 

[Ortiz5954]

Hi,
I have both chickens and ducks together, they share the same run but chickens and ducks have separate coops within the run. I also purposely built my run next to the large dog kennel we do not use and that is where they go to swim, we are just making an opening so they can get to it all the time, this help prevents the HUGE mess from water,I had put the ducks pool in the run!!. They get along fairly well though. The only down fall is we have one chicken who thinks she is a duck at times and will either take turns with the ducks sitting on their eggs or lays her own eggs in their nest. They do eat the same food and if we offer any fresh fruits/veggies we just search out that it is safe for both of them. For us it works and I can empty the pools daily and spray down the kennel, if I had room for a pond I would do so but I would just make sure border surrounding pond was wide enough so ducks do not make mud when they splash.