how many is to many?

[ben is a terror]

We live in a res. development on a 75x120 lot. My girls (12) have a 8x10 wood shed and a 10x18 run. the shed is in the run. Our town doesn't care what I have as long as the neighbors don't complain. We have no roos. The town said I could have an elephant if I wanted. We would like to increase our flock with some ducks. I already got 2 kiddie pools. The girls get to roam the whole yard when I'm home. The question is how many is to many? Any thoughts

 

[Becky_H]

I think too many, ultimately, is an individual thing based more on the amount of care you can provide and what you are comfortable with, and your neighbors and the personalities of the birds involved. I don't like hard and fast 'calculator' type answers to these questions because it varies.

However, I am going to tell you now:
Ducks smell - a lot. They are messy - a lot. Ducks take up a lot of space.

Right now I have *one* chicken, but I've had both ducks and chickens in the past, and as much as I *loved* our ducks (this was 10 years ago, in Michigan, with lakes - and spoiled ducks who went on walks on harnesses with us) I can tell you that 2 ducks smell more, poop more, and make a bigger mess than a dozen chickens. Kiddie pools are going to need to be emptied, cleaned and refilled every single day - at least once a day, and that makes its own kind of mess. You are more likely to upset your neighbors with ducks than hens, based on smell and MUD alone.

So, um. I'd think real carefully about that one, were I you.

 

[hennyannie]

In my personel experience 12/14 hens are a pleasure to take care of, I now have 30 and there are days when I wish I could scale down a bit.I really have to agree with the duck thing, they do smell alot more. I think the differance is wet verses dry/dusty when comparing to chickens.

 

[Becky_H]

It is - and they need the water to eat, and then of course water makes it easier for bacteria to grow and mold to gross and algae to grow and, and then they're DRINKING a lot of water, so of course their poop's different, and just - I love them, but they are by no means as unobtrusive in a suburban/backyard/pet setting as chickens.

And yeah. Chickens at some point become a lot of labor and exhaustion. That point is kind of individual - unless it's a single, at which point the social thing makes you become the flock and that's not manual labor, that's just having a chicken velcroed to your ankle (I seriously have to get this guy some girls - as soon as I can find someone that's not a tsc selling.)

 

[avalentine]

There are a few ways to think about this- how much work you want, how many eggs you want to deal with, if you ever want to have anything else in your life... Even though they can roam the whole yard when you are home there may be times that you are out of town, and you may not find a chicken/duck sitter who has time to let them out, so I would think about the run as being one limiting factor?

I think the recommended minimum yard space that I read in Storey's Guide was something like 8-10 square feet per chicken. I don't know about ducks (haven't had them since I was a kid), but the more space the better. And I do vaguely recall ducks being a happy, stinky, loud and fun mess. Let's just say we didn't have them for long, but I thought they were awesome. Of course I didn't really have to do the work for them... We had basic domestic ducks first, and then those beautiful Mandarins.

Good luck with the flock!

 

[oldchickenlady]

Well, you have 180 sq feet of run, but 80 of that is taken up by the coop, leaving you with 100 sq feet of run. Now you have 12 chickens. The recommended minimum of run space is 10 sq feet per bird...so...in theory you already have too many for the amount of run space you have. However, you do let them free range some, so it about equals out. Now you want a couple of ducks. I have raised ducks. Yes they are the cutest creature on the planet when they are little fuzz balls in a brooder. When they are grown and are pooping slimy stinking wet poo (no nice little dry balls of poo) which attracts flies like crazy, quacking and carrying on, spilling their water and feed...not so cute then. Personally, I would not get ducks again unless I had a LOT of space AWAY from my house. Honestly, ducks can turn a pen into a stinking slime pit! I would raise ducks again if I had a pond (which I did when I raised mine) and it wasn't too close to my house. I would not even think about it on a property as small as yours. Just saying...

 

[RoostersCrow HensDeliver!]

Quote:
Ducks are soooo messy. I would take that into consideration before bringing them home. Also, duck hens are extremely loud. None of my roosters could come close to how obnoxious my pekin duck hens were. When both of those duck hens sounded the alarm (which was at something as dangerous as a couple of leaves blowing into the enclosure) it could be heard loud and clear all the way to my neighbor's house a 1/2 mile down the road. Fortunately he is a very nice, understanding man and did not complain about the noise.
Now I've only ever had pekins and mallards so I can't speak for every breed, but they were much louder and messier than my coop of 56 ISA Brown laying hens. And there would need to be seperate feeders and waterers for the chickens and ducks so that the chickens have access to clean food and water. I am not kidding about how messy the ducks are. It was absoulutely appalled how the ducks trashed their grassy run in just 2 days (there were 2 duck hens and 1 duck drake in 20'x10' area). The grass still hasn't recovered and I got rid of them last August. I found out the hard way that it takes a LOT of effert to keep ducks and I won't be doing so again. I do have to say they were mighty tasty, but still not worth all the work in my opinion.

 

[ben is a terror]

Wow you guys have given me so much to think about! I remember the duck I had as a kid. She followed me everywhere. We lived in a rural farm country. We only had 1 acre but we would regularly wake up to Mr. Lowes cow in our yard, and pulling our dog out of the manure. I guess you can't go back

No ducks for me just good memories of Puddles. Thanks for giving me a reality check