Hello, I'm Dave, an English lad newly living in France, and the house we recently purchased came with 7 ducks and 18 chickens.
It goes without saying that I've had many many questions, and google searches 9 times out of 10 brought me here, so have finally decided to sign up as BYC is such a wealth of information!
Anyway,
Ducks:
3 males - 1 a Muscovy and 2 (I think brothers) are the all white breed.
4 females - 1 a broody muscovy named "momma duck", a small white one and 2 sisters (one being grey, the other in muscovy colours)
Chickens, we actually started with 19, but sadly over the course of us moving in (2days), one started standing still and by the time we'd finished, the poor thing had keeled over. But how-and-ever we still have 18 - one of which is a rather big and handsome rooster.
Chickens are laying around 6-8 eggs per day.
We were told they are Sussex chickens, but there are 3 colours, mostly black, mostly white with black dotted collar, and the gingery orange ones. No idea if the Sussex breed is single colour or can be any colour.
At the moment we have no interest in hatching any chicken eggs, however the ducks... About 2-3 weeks back our ducks were sleeping in the chicken house and I noticed an odd looking egg, and over a few days a couple more appeared, I dismissed it as being a slightly bigger paler chicken egg, but I started letting the ducks out during the day (to roam 2 hectares and access to the pond) long story short, momma duck laid an egg outside, so that was that, 7 ducks eggs after her first, I realised and I now have her seperated at night in her own duck house. I'm making a few mods for her as it's still chilly at night 1-3°c and need to modify the electrics to accommodate a heat lamp for when the ducklings arrive. By the way, those 7 "chicken" duck eggs were discarded and now she's on her own at night she's laid her 11th in her nest - getting a little crowded so I'm hoping she'll stop laying soon and start sitting. I noticed this morning she's began pruning herself to create a fluff which was all over her eggs so I'm hoping its a sign she's going to start sitting.
Speaking of which I have a question, in the morning I feed the chickens and let the ducks out the human door, close it, pop round the back and release the chickens into their 2300m area, and head to the duck house where momma is. The duck house has a divide in the middle, momma duck has the whole area at night, so nest, water, food, space. During the day, I close off the area her nest is in so the others cannot access it, and leave them all access to the food and water. When momma starts sitting what do I do?? When the ducklings come, I'll read on here what to do in terms of keeping them inside and paint tray for swimming lessons etc but when I let them outside, they have a trap door leading to an enclosed area. But in terms of momma sitting, what do I do, let her out for a few hours then close her back in against her will. Obviously the duckling will be seperated from the other ducks until they're big enough.
But that's me (for now-so many questions) and our setup.
I look forward to reading more of BYC, asking lots of questions and maybe even helping one day.
Au revoir for now.
It goes without saying that I've had many many questions, and google searches 9 times out of 10 brought me here, so have finally decided to sign up as BYC is such a wealth of information!
Anyway,
Ducks:
3 males - 1 a Muscovy and 2 (I think brothers) are the all white breed.
4 females - 1 a broody muscovy named "momma duck", a small white one and 2 sisters (one being grey, the other in muscovy colours)
Chickens, we actually started with 19, but sadly over the course of us moving in (2days), one started standing still and by the time we'd finished, the poor thing had keeled over. But how-and-ever we still have 18 - one of which is a rather big and handsome rooster.
Chickens are laying around 6-8 eggs per day.
We were told they are Sussex chickens, but there are 3 colours, mostly black, mostly white with black dotted collar, and the gingery orange ones. No idea if the Sussex breed is single colour or can be any colour.
At the moment we have no interest in hatching any chicken eggs, however the ducks... About 2-3 weeks back our ducks were sleeping in the chicken house and I noticed an odd looking egg, and over a few days a couple more appeared, I dismissed it as being a slightly bigger paler chicken egg, but I started letting the ducks out during the day (to roam 2 hectares and access to the pond) long story short, momma duck laid an egg outside, so that was that, 7 ducks eggs after her first, I realised and I now have her seperated at night in her own duck house. I'm making a few mods for her as it's still chilly at night 1-3°c and need to modify the electrics to accommodate a heat lamp for when the ducklings arrive. By the way, those 7 "chicken" duck eggs were discarded and now she's on her own at night she's laid her 11th in her nest - getting a little crowded so I'm hoping she'll stop laying soon and start sitting. I noticed this morning she's began pruning herself to create a fluff which was all over her eggs so I'm hoping its a sign she's going to start sitting.
Speaking of which I have a question, in the morning I feed the chickens and let the ducks out the human door, close it, pop round the back and release the chickens into their 2300m area, and head to the duck house where momma is. The duck house has a divide in the middle, momma duck has the whole area at night, so nest, water, food, space. During the day, I close off the area her nest is in so the others cannot access it, and leave them all access to the food and water. When momma starts sitting what do I do?? When the ducklings come, I'll read on here what to do in terms of keeping them inside and paint tray for swimming lessons etc but when I let them outside, they have a trap door leading to an enclosed area. But in terms of momma sitting, what do I do, let her out for a few hours then close her back in against her will. Obviously the duckling will be seperated from the other ducks until they're big enough.
But that's me (for now-so many questions) and our setup.
I look forward to reading more of BYC, asking lots of questions and maybe even helping one day.
Au revoir for now.
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though I look forward to little ones. Having come from a small city lifestyle to a rural country setting, with 25 birds to care for. It's an enriching life change!
and Welcome To BYC! Good luck with your (hopefully) broody duck!
