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thriftshopjunky

thriftshopjunky

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Hi! My names Amanda and just this year my family decided to raise chicks and ducks. We went to TSC and bought 6 barred rocks, 4 welsummers, 4 black sex links and 3 rouen ducks. The barred rocks and black sex links were pullets and the rouen and welsummers were straight runs. All the chicks and ducks were wonderful and we had very few problems for a while. One of our welsummer roosters, Chum, was killed by a fox. Then the fox came back and attacked one of the black sex links, Lafonda, but fortunately I nursed her back to health. While I was trying to heal up Lafonda, one of our ducks, Hadley, broke her leg so she was in the basement healing with Lafonda. About a week later I put Lafonda back into the coop with the others because she was healed up. The next morning though, a mink snuck under the coop, got into the pen and killed all of our birds as the automatic door to the coop opened. It's terribly sad because they were our babies and now we only have a sad duck with a horrible limp. But we are going to try again and so we ordered new birds that are coming in the week of the 7th and Im thrilled because they contain a male and female Cayuga ducks. I have a few questions, is there a way to discourage minks and other critters from the chicken coop? And how long should we wait to introduce the new chickens and ducks to our duck Hadley? Will she be kind toward the ducklings or will she be aggressive? Because we already got 2 Buffs and 2 ameraucanas about a week ago (we got them from a small hatchery and they are about a month old) and she has tried to bite them multiple times.
 
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Hello there and welcome to BYC!

Oh, I am so sorry you have had all this trouble and lost your entire flock. It is never easy to lose them after become so attached.
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All you can do is make sure your coop and run is predator proof. I don't care for those automatic doors for this reason. The predators are always sneaking around and can be right there when the door opens. So make sure you are pred proofed and don't have the door open until it is well lit out side. Same with the evening. You might want to lock them up yourself at night and only use the auto door in the morning after it is light enough out side that the preds are back in their dens.

I am not sure about keeping the duck with the chicks. I don't keep ducks, but I do know that both of these species has very different requirements for feed, water needs and nesting. So you might want to get the duck some companions and put them in their own quarters.

You can ask this question in our Ducks section to chat with our Duck experts...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/42/ducks

Good luck with your new flock. Make yourself at home here on BYC and feel free to ask questions when you have them. :-)
 
Welcome to BYC, Amanda! I'm sorry about your losses to predators. You had a nice mixed flock. Black Sex Links are my favorite chickens. They are friendly, egg laying machines. TwoCrows has given you some good advice. Make sure you use 1/2 in. hardware cloth on your coop and not chicken wire. Too many predators can either either tear (like foxes) or go through the openings (like minks) in chicken wire. Good luck with your new flock.
 
It might be best to hold off getting new birds, until you have totally secure runs and coops. Otherwise you will keep replacing birds until you can't take any more losses and quit.
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Hello :frow and Welcome To BYC! Sorry about the losses you have had. You've gotten some good suggesions/ links above. You might want to check out the predator forum for help with dealing with them and fixing your coop www.backyardchickens.com/f/13/predators-and-pests
There are several nice articles in the Learning Center that you might want to check out, one on adding birds to your flock, it is usually best to add them when they are about the same size and to have them get used to each other through wire, ie if you can divide the coop into sections or keep the younger birds in a cage in the coop for a couple of weeks https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/adding-to-your-flock there are also some articles / links with tips on keeping ducks/chickens etc in the same coop https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/how-to-keep-different-poultry-types-living-together-in-one-coop
 

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