Hi! and Help! from Riddle Farm :)

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riddlefarm

riddlefarm

Hatching
7 Years
May 6, 2012
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Hi Everyone,

Riddle Farm is happy to be here. We are young, permaculture family farm in Western NC with chickens (we started out with 50, now about 25 :( about 3 months old), goats (2 nannies, 1 kid), and pigs (1 berkshire, 1 large black hog) and about to get 15 baby chicks and 19 baby ducks (saxony, and cayuga). We are rather new to this business and interspecies free-range farming is very fun and interesting, but also sometimes dumbfounding. For instance...

Something got in the chicken pen, I'm thinking cayotes. Whatever it was, it took a lot. Needless to say, we improved the structure and fencing, plus added some brooding boxes. It's very well ventilated, because I heard that's what chickens needed. Well, we had a cold snap around that time, and the birds went into the goat pen to stay warm and found that they liked it better in there. Maybe they feel the goats will protect them, actually we've lost two to the goats rolling over on them. Plus it's smelling nasty in there and will be a hopeless scene in about a month when they start laying. How do I call chickens home to roost??!

Also, with this new order on the way, is it ok to raise baby chicks and ducks together in the same heated horse trough?

Thanks for your chicken wisdom,
Jessie
 
Yes you an brood Chicks and Ducks together.
WelcometoBYC.gif
 
Welcome to BYC. You can retrain your chickens by locking them up in their pen for a few days. You might have physically put them inside the coop for the night and lock them inside til the next morning. They'll eventually learn to do this on their own.
 
Chickens naturally come to roost at night in the same spot. I would put them on the roost every night until they go there one their own.

Yes, you can raise chickens and ducks together. Just make sure the food you feed them in unmedicated. Medicated feed can kill ducklings.

 

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