Hello All!

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Tessy2

Chirping
6 Years
Jan 22, 2016
4
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Hello!

I am hoping to get state regulation information for chickens. It seems pretty hard to find everything you're looking for! I have raised ducks in the past so I'm not totally new.

So a little about me: I'm currently in CO for the next 4 months, then I will be moving to CA. From there my girlfriend and I are going to decide on our long term plan, either stay in CA or move to Washington or NC or perhaps somewhere else! We're trying to have a small homestead, I work from home so I will have a lot of time on my hands to tend to everyone. We have 5 dogs (Heeler/Border collie mix, Heeler/Aussie shepherd mix, golden retriever, dachshund, and husky) and 2 cats.

1) I have been wondering if you can house ducks, chickens, and Guinea fowl together? Or would they pick on each other?
2) Has anyone heard of housing quail with chickens?
3) We're looking for friendly birds, that can handle cold temps.


The chicken breeds that we have fallen in love with are; Cochin, salmon favorelle, brahma, campine, EE, Cornish, Black Copper Maran, Russian Orloff, Silkie, Wyandotte.
Ducks; Pekin, Rouen, Runner
We're also looking into bourbon red turkeys, cotournix quail, Guinea fowl, and perhaps emu.

I know this was long, thanks for reading!
 
Tessy2 said:
Hello!

I am hoping to get state regulation information for chickens. It seems pretty hard to find everything you're looking for! I have raised ducks in the past so I'm not totally new.

So a little about me: I'm currently in CO for the next 4 months, then I will be moving to CA. From there my girlfriend and I are going to decide on our long term plan, either stay in CA or move to Washington or NC or perhaps somewhere else! We're trying to have a small homestead, I work from home so I will have a lot of time on my hands to tend to everyone. We have 5 dogs (Heeler/Border collie mix, Heeler/Aussie shepherd mix, golden retriever, dachshund, and husky) and 2 cats.

1) I have been wondering if you can house ducks, chickens, and Guinea fowl together? Or would they pick on each other?
2) Has anyone heard of housing quail with chickens?
3) We're looking for friendly birds, that can handle cold temps.


The chicken breeds that we have fallen in love with are; Cochin, salmon favorelle, brahma, campine, EE, Cornish, Black Copper Maran, Russian Orloff, Silkie, Wyandotte.
Ducks; Pekin, Rouen, Runner
We're also looking into bourbon red turkeys, cotournix quail, Guinea fowl, and perhaps emu.

I know this was long, thanks for reading!
Click to expand...

Welcome to BYC! Glad you joined the flock!
1) They might peck on each other. I've seen them free range together with little to no problems. The biggest thing is diseases is why most people don't like housing different species together. For example: Ducks and other waterfowl can remain sort of immune to Avian Influenza but spread it to other species. Guinea fowl can't handle Avian Influenza and will die fast compared to that of waterfowl. It's just disease control is the reason to separate them.
2) Housing not so much. Quail are small and larger chicken breeds will pick on them easily.
3) Bird species and breeds I've had experience with a lot of them are friendly and a bunch can handle cold temps. Runners I raise and they do fine with the cold. I've raised Silkies, Wyandottes, EE, Cornish, Cochin, and Brahma and they all did fine. So long as the bird can get out of the weather somehow they tend to be fine especially if they also have friends to share body heat.
Emus I don't have experience with so I'm not going to be as much help as I wish. The only things I know about Emus are: they are amazingly soft, can be very friendly, their eggs are a dark green, the males will dig the nest, hen will lay her eggs and then the male will stay to incubate the eggs, they have two feathers per quill.
 
Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided to join our flock. You have some wonderful breeds. Cochins, Faverolles, Brahmas, and Silkies are all very calm and gentle breeds (great lap pets). :eek:) I'm a chicken person and don't know much about ducks, guineas, and quail but I would suggest posting on our Duck, Guinea, and Quail sections in Other Backyard Poultry under the Forum at the top of the page and taking advantage of our duck, guinea, and quail experts there. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Cheers.
 
Emus need a lot of room to run , preferably tree less - they are apt to run into them otherwise. If you hatch eggs, they can imprint on you and be very affectionate(for them) though sometimes bruising to humans. Lots of socialization makes a big difference. I believe it is 55 days for eggs to hatch. The most important thing is good legs, - leg conditions can shorten their life. It takes strong legs to lift them. For the first year they are very vulnerable to injuries, illness etc. I think breeding age is about 3 yrs.

I've never had them but, two of the women that did were very thorough about reporting details on BYC , posted videos etc. etc. There are emu threads on BYC and I advise reading them all before deciding
 
Hi and welcome to BYC. I wish you all the best with your plans - sounds like you have very exciting times ahead :thumbsup

Ct
 
Oh boy, you'll have a lot of interesting things to post when you get your homestead and your new housemates. Can't wait. Welcome to the forum.
 
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Good luck!
 
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People can and do keep their ducks and chickens together but in addition to the concern Birdrain92 mentioned there are a couple of things to be aware of. Ducks (even little ducklings) are very messy and will get water everywhere...damp bedding and chickens don't mix. With adult drakes, they will sometimes try to mate with chickens and because male ducks have a different anatomy then roosters, they can injure or even kill the chickens (I think if the drakes have enough duck hens, this helps prevent the problem).

I don't have any experience with emus, turkeys or quail but using the Search feature (upper left corner, under the logo) you should be able to find quite a bit of information.

Good luck with all your plans. If you have questions, feel free to ask. There is a ton of information available here and a lot of helpful members.
 
Thank you so much everyone!
We aren't totally sold on emus, it was just an idea we were tossing around. I figured being informed on all the fowl would help us decide if they are right for us or not
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