If I love chickens...will I love ducks?

[GabCar]

We currently have a small backyard flock of chickens. We have 11 hens and a roo (and 9 in the incubator due to hatch Monday). My son is absolutely duck OBSESSED and is begging for ducks. His bday is coming up in a week and my friend just hatched cayuga/saxony crosses and I'm planning on getting him a pair of ducks. We have plenty of room in our run and will be setting up a small pool for them to swim and play in. We absolutely love love love raising our chickens...do you think if I love chickens that I will love having ducks? I seem to hear so many downfalls of having ducks but I just love their little personalities and am really looking forward to some duck eggs for baking. Opinions? Advice? Thank you friends in advance!

 

[sourland]

Ducks are really neat creatures, but they are another game altogether. They are messy with their food and water, and they poop copiously. On the other hand they have incredible personalities and can be really funny. Drakes can be a royal pain in the butt, and can cause problems around chicken hens so a separate pen may be needed.

 

[faith5]

How cool, I’ve got chicks in the incubator due to hatch Monday as well!
Ducks are super fun to be with and can be great addition to your family. The only things that I find difficult with ducks are that 1- they poop a lot, so if they are in a smaller area the poop will build up and up and the next thing you know you got duck poop everywhere! 2- SOME of them can be quite loud 3- they are very messy with water and constantly get their water dirty (drinkable water and water they play in (I use baby pools). I currently have 8 ducks and 5 ducklings!!! I say if you love them so much, the messes they make don’t matter. You’ll just find yourself spending more time with them cleaning up their home! But overall I love my ducks and I think that if you get ducks, you and your son will love them as well!

 

[BFen]

I was in the similar boat as you. I had 17 chicks ranging from 2 weeks to 6 weeks, and I was going crazy for some ducks. I have plenty of room and did a bunch of research. The only real negatives I found were messy and the poop thing. After posting some questions, I decided to go for it. I decided two ducks couldn't be that messy. I found two newly hatched Welsh harlequins on Craig'sList from a local duck farmer. I've had the ducklings for one week, so that's the only experience I can go off of. Here are my findings (which may change as they grow): 1. Poop so far is the same as the chicks. Maybe a little bigger but not bad. Once again they are still very small (12 days old now). 2. Messiness is a thing. The ducklings are in a brooder with my youngest chicks. They are relatively the same size. Before I introduced the ducks, the wood chips were always dry. Now the chips within half a food around the water and food is wet.Always. I already cleaned the brooder every other day but now I do it daily. I'm more worried about when I move the ducks out to the coop. I don't want the coop wet all the time. I don't want mold to grow, I heard that's bad for the chickens. Regardless, the ducks are precious. Even more so than my chickies in my opinion. I can't really explain it, but there is an innocence to them that is different from the chicks, but they are still so young.
I say still go for them. They'll make you and your son happy. Just look into how to keep the water elevated or over a grate so it doesn't soak the brooder. That's what I'm working on now. These are just my opinions.

 

[CaseyRee]

I added two ducks to my coop 1 girl 1 boy and it was the most heartbreaking experience. Drakes have insane libidos. I tried everything to try and keep him but it got to a point where he was hurting my girls and even cornering me. Please do your research before you purchase ducks. Also their poop is like tar all over your yard and coop

 

[GabCar]

I was in the similar boat as you. I had 17 chicks ranging from 2 weeks to 6 weeks, and I was going crazy for some ducks. I have plenty of room and did a bunch of research. The only real negatives I found were messy and the poop thing. After posting some questions, I decided to go for it. I decided two ducks couldn't be that messy. I found two newly hatched Welsh harlequins on Craig'sList from a local duck farmer. I've had the ducklings for one week, so that's the only experience I can go off of. Here are my findings (which may change as they grow): 1. Poop so far is the same as the chicks. Maybe a little bigger but not bad. Once again they are still very small (12 days old now). 2. Messiness is a thing. The ducklings are in a brooder with my youngest chicks. They are relatively the same size. Before I introduced the ducks, the wood chips were always dry. Now the chips within half a food around the water and food is wet.Always. I already cleaned the brooder every other day but now I do it daily. I'm more worried about when I move the ducks out to the coop. I don't want the coop wet all the time. I don't want mold to grow, I heard that's bad for the chickens. Regardless, the ducks are precious. Even more so than my chickies in my opinion. I can't really explain it, but there is an innocence to them that is different from the chicks, but they are still so young.
I say still go for them. They'll make you and your son happy. Just look into how to keep the water elevated or over a grate so it doesn't soak the brooder. That's what I'm working on now. These are just my opinions.

Thank you guys so much!!! I really do appreciate your input a ton. I think we're just going to do it. I was so hesitant about chickens and I love every single minute of it...I have a feeling that these ducks are going to steal my heart away instantly.

 

[GabCar]

So...we did it and brought home 2 sweet baby ducks that are doing great with the 8 chicks we have that just hatched too!

 

[BFen]

Sounds great! What type of ducks?

 

[CeceliaD]

So...we did it and brought home 2 sweet baby ducks that are doing great with the 8 chicks we have that just hatched too!

How’s it going? I just got two ducklings and am waiting on 8 chicks this Friday. My ducklings are obsessed with me and need to be able to see me at all times or they’ll cry. Are yours like that or have the other chicks kept them occupied?

 

[gtaus]

I have raised ducks, geese, and chickens. They are all wonderful in their own ways. Like everyone said, ducks are more messy than chickens. In my case, I live on a lake and just let them out on the water during the day. I put them in a pen/coop at night, but things would still get messy and I was always cleaning up after them.

But I still have fond memories of my late father calling in the ducks in the evening, the ducks flying over the lake to come back home for the night, and marching into their pen. I had mallards, and in the fall we just let them fly south. Some of them retuned to my home in the springtime for a few years after that and built nests close to where I had them in pens. So I got to enjoy them in the "wild" for a few additional years.

Hope you enjoy your ducklings as much as I did with my father. Time to build some great memories with your son. Best wishes.