Interested to hear from anyone with ducks please?

[Amber.charlie]

Hi!
I’m interested to hear from anyone who has ducks please?
We are looking into getting some, we live in the uk, and out int the country. We already have chickens which the whole family adore.
But we would love to have a few ducks too.
I’m just wondering what the upkeep of ducks is?
The only thing that’s out is off in the past is people telling us how messy they are... are they that bad?
What are the best breeds to look at?
How much space do they need?
And what are the basics to keeping ducks as as it stands we are clueless.
Any help would be great. Thanks
Amber and charlie.

 

[Miss Lydia]

lot of great info here https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/other-backyard-fowl-ducks-quail-turkeys-geese-etc.67519/

 

[Amber.charlie]

lot of great info here https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/other-backyard-fowl-ducks-quail-turkeys-geese-etc.67519/

Thank you!

 

[PirateGirl]

Also good info here...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/ducks-sticky-topics-index.256233/

Keeping ducks isn't much more difficult than keeping chickens. They both get food and water daily, go in and out daily, have eggs collected daily, and my ducks and chickens all eat the same food. The big difference is that ducks go through lots more water and depending on your setup and how you fill/drain/thaw/clean water and water containers this may or may not be very time consuming. I like to reuse the dirty water to water all my plants/garden/compost. Also I find the run needs more cleaning/maintenance on my part (a non-issue if they are free range or on a large piece of open land, but mine are in a fenced run). While chickens seem to scratch everything to dust/compost, the duck droppings/bedding seems to form a wet layer of muck by the end of the week. This varies with weather, but generally I have to do something about it on a regular basis whereas I don't touch the ground in the chicken run. Again, different people manage poop in different ways, I am learning as I go, your environment/weather/soil all play a roll as well. I have bigger plans to make my life easier, but currently I turn the bedding daily (or every other day, but this takes about 2 minutes tops, easy) with a tool I believe is called a cultivator (it's like a cross between a hoe and a pitchfork and I love it), then about once every 1-2 weeks I remove any bedding from the run (add to compost pile or dispose of), move the duck house bedding to the run, and put fresh bedding in the duck house. That's my rotation, for now. We are building another fenced area though and I plan to move the ducks out there periodically and move the chickens to the duck run to turn the bedding and work it to compost, so less work for me.

 

[Amber.charlie]

This has been very helpful!
Thank you.
Can they be free ranging with the chicken without any problems? Our chickens have a large area of our garden, which would be what we would do for the ducks also, section off a separate large area for them..but the chicken are let out everyday for a few hours to free range, and scratch up the grass etc. So I’m just wondering if I were to let them out would that cause issues with the ducks being around too?
What about water? How much water do they need access too? Sorry for all the questions. Thanks again.

 

[PirateGirl]

The free range answer probably depends on your chickens and depends on your ducks and how much they care (or don't care) about each other. Some people do it successfully and some can never mix. You just have to have a plan in place to keep them separate if it doesn't work. I would think there would be more problems with males in breeding season as well.

For 4 ducks I have a 3 gallon bucket that gets filled with fresh water for drinking every day. They go through almost all of it by the time I get home. They also have containers for swimming since I don't have a natural pond, I have a 15 gallon stock tank they can bathe in during winter, and really only 2 fit in at a time, but when everything freezes that's what they get. They have a small kiddie pool now that's probably like 25 gallons. Now that stores are getting summer stuff in, they might get something bigger. It doesn't get fully refilled and refreshed daily, I do it as needed depending how much they muck it up, at least once a week in summer. Right now I fill with a hose and empty with buckets that I carry to different garden beds. I plan to add a simple drain with a hose and hopefully I can water some of the plants directly from the duck pool. Depending what you want to spend their pond situation could be very elaborate, but ideally at minimum, they need some water they can climb into and fully clean themselves off and preen on a regular basis.

 

[Amber.charlie]

The free range answer probably depends on your chickens and depends on your ducks and how much they care (or don't care) about each other. Some people do it successfully and some can never mix. You just have to have a plan in place to keep them separate if it doesn't work. I would think there would be more problems with males in breeding season as well.

For 4 ducks I have a 3 gallon bucket that gets filled with fresh water for drinking every day. They go through almost all of it by the time I get home. They also have containers for swimming since I don't have a natural pond, I have a 15 gallon stock tank they can bathe in during winter, and really only 2 fit in at a time, but when everything freezes that's what they get. They have a small kiddie pool now that's probably like 25 gallons. Now that stores are getting summer stuff in, they might get something bigger. It doesn't get fully refilled and refreshed daily, I do it as needed depending how much they muck it up, at least once a week in summer. Right now I fill with a hose and empty with buckets that I carry to different garden beds. I plan to add a simple drain with a hose and hopefully I can water some of the plants directly from the duck pool. Depending what you want to spend their pond situation could be very elaborate, but ideally at minimum, they need some water they can climb into and fully clean themselves off and preen on a regular basis.

This has been amazingly helpful! Thank you! So much.

 

[Tamitch]

We have our ducks and chickens together and they do well as long as everyone knows their place in the pecking order. The ducks can be bullies at times so just watch them. And yes ducks are messy, the more water they have to play in the bigger the mess. I have a small kiddie pool, about 3 feet wide and maybe a foot deep, they can empty half of that in a day with their splashing.

 

[llombardo]

I have 4 chickens and 3 ducks. They were raised together and do well together. The chickens are very interested (in a curious concerned way)in the ducks. One of the ducks is real close with one of the chickens. I'm making the enclosure now. When I'm not home they will be seperated(I worry about the chickens with the pool. When I'm home they will have access to the while area. I got a 5 gallon heated bucket for dunkjng in summer and winter.the pool will go away in the winter. Seperate houses. I think it will work pretty good. I'm hoping they are all going to be happy.

 

[harmonymw]

It helps if the chickens have access to the duck pen but not vice versa. Our hens do their thing in the duck pen and it helps turn the bedding like one of the above posters mentioned. My only issue is that my hens got lazy when we got ducks and started using their feeders and waterers. The chicken feeders hang about eight inches off their coop floor and the waterers are nipple-style. Once the hens realized there was feed at ground level and an open fount in the duck run, they were no longer interested in “working” for their nourishment.