Sorry for taking so long to reply, I didn't see that I had responses from my profile so I didn't think to check.
The silver applyard, rouen, and saxony are the breeds that I'm most interested in, though the muscovy might be better especially since dad will be doing the killing (he likes ducks, but muscovies are ugly [no offence intended]). My biggest problem with muscovies is I don't know if I would have to do anything special, since that muscovy law craziness a while back left me confused. I would like to avoid a white bird, as we have a few coopers hawks living here.
The biggest reason I like the rouen is because I've read they go broody and they look a lot like mallards. The saxony is very pretty and lays well which is why I like them, and the silver appleyard I've read is a good forager. I've read that the rouen has two kinds: meat and layer. The layer is the one I want as from what I read, the meat variety is difficult to breed and doesn't lay very well and the layer one still has a good amount of meat.
We have about 2 1/2 acres of open land and 5 wooded. A 60x60 foot area of the open land is cut out for moms bushes and plants that she wants to sell. There are a few of reasons why we want to be off bagged feed:
1. We can't afford organic food, and the rest has GMO.
2. If we can grow some meat for only the cost of labor then it'll help the wallet.
3. We want to avoid soy, and that's near impossible to do with processed animal food.
The "duck coop" I'm thinking of making would be 4x8 foot, so not that big but I only plan to house 2-5 hens and one drake, plus any babies the hens are raising before slaughter. I'm hoping that by keeping the number down, they'll be able to find forage more easily. They would be sharing the 2 acres with about 15 chickens, a couple of gardens, and in a year, possibly 3 geese. Does this sound like enough space?
