Mixed flock

[Hgc]

I have a flock of 1 month Olds. A black sex link, eclipse, a black australorp, Bobby, a buff orpington, torchic, jersey giant, serabi, and a speckled Sussex, Satan. I also have a male and female rouen ducks, quaxwell, and ducklett, and a buff orpington duck named daisy. Everybody is about the same age and have been together since about 3 days old. They all get along well, except now there's a lot of pecking and bickering between the chicks. Is that normal for their age? That's my first question. I also have two silkies and a blue cochin bantam that are two weeks old and in a different brooder. My second question is will I have any trouble with the silkies and bantam being accepted and when will it be safe to put them together?

 

[rosemarythyme]

How big's the brooder? I notice there's not really anything in there for them to do, no dust bath, no bedding, no roosts or other things to interact with. Chicks can go stir crazy too.

Can you start taking them outside or is there not a secured area yet, weather's bad, etc.? At 4 weeks old (with chickens at least, I don't have ducks) they can handle a decent temperature range as long as you start acclimating them to outside temps.

As far as the bantam group, they may work out just fine with the standard birds, or they may not. Do you have a backup plan for them to get their own coop and run in case they don't get on well with the standard birds?

 

[Hgc]

How big's the brooder? I notice there's not really anything in there for them to do, no dust bath, no bedding, no roosts or other things to interact with. Chicks can go stir crazy too.

Can you start taking them outside or is there not a secured area yet, weather's bad, etc.? At 4 weeks old (with chickens at least, I don't have ducks) they can handle a decent temperature range as long as you start acclimating them to outside temps.

As far as the bantam group, they may work out just fine with the standard birds, or they may not. Do you have a backup plan for them to get their own coop and run in case they don't get on well with the standard birds?

The brooder is pretty big, maybe 5x5. I do have some toys for them, a few bird toys I just have to put them back in. I'm going to grab them a branch from a tree, the only thing I use in there is puppy pads, but twice a day I give them play time in a made shift dust bath. The weather has been cold and now it's rainy. I'm hoping my bantams will work with the group, right now they can kind of see each other and both the older chicks and younger will fall asleep at the barrier where they can see. I hadn't thought about a second coop until now, but I will start.

 

[rosemarythyme]

The brooder is pretty big, maybe 5x5. I do have some toys for them, a few bird toys I just have to put them back in. I'm going to grab them a branch from a tree, the only thing I use in there is puppy pads, but twice a day I give them play time in a made shift dust bath. The weather has been cold and now it's rainy. I'm hoping my bantams will work with the group, right now they can kind of see each other and both the older chicks and younger will fall asleep at the barrier where they can see. I hadn't thought about a second coop until now, but I will start.

If they have a sheltered place outside whether it's the coop itself or some sort of covered area rain isn't really an issue, not at a month old (the younger ones will take longer both because of being younger and the fact that silkied feathering doesn't provide the same weather protection as standard feathering). So short of forecasts of late season snow or hail I would start making plans to take them outside as you're begin closing in on moving them out.

And as far as the bantams, I would proceed like they'll be housed together, but with a backup plan in the back of my head in case it just doesn't work. A prefab might be fine for just 3 bantams, for example.

 

[ClickityChick123]

I have a flock of 1 month Olds. A black sex link, eclipse, a black australorp, Bobby, a buff orpington, torchic, jersey giant, serabi, and a speckled Sussex, Satan. I also have a male and female rouen ducks, quaxwell, and ducklett, and a buff orpington duck named daisy. Everybody is about the same age and have been together since about 3 days old. They all get along well, except now there's a lot of pecking and bickering between the chicks. Is that normal for their age? That's my first question. I also have two silkies and a blue cochin bantam that are two weeks old and in a different brooder. My second question is will I have any trouble with the silkies and bantam being accepted and when will it be safe to put them together?

They might just be setting up a pecking order, I know that's what my chicks do. So and So eats first, So and So gets last pick in treats, So and So has to wait until So and So is finished etc.

 

[Finnie]

A couple of ideas for you.

As you can see, your ducklings are growing at a phenomenally faster rate than the chicken chicks. You may want to consider moving the ducklings out. In fact, ducklings can graduate to no heat and acclimate to outdoor temperatures at a younger age than chickens can.

Second, at two and four weeks old, I would be combining the bantam chicks with the large fowl chicks immediately. That way they blend and establish pecking order at a younger age, which is easier than waiting until you have a huge size difference between them and trying to make older birds integrate with one another. But, with those big clodhopper ducklings in there, the bantams might get trampled. So another reason to separate the ducklings.

And finally a third reason to separate the ducklings: you only have 3 of them, presumably one male and two females. Two females might be enough to keep the drake satisfied when he reaches sexual maturity, but if he has been raised with chickens, he will not think twice about trying to mate with them. And that can have fatal consequences for the hens because their anatomy cannot accommodate a male duck’s penis. Usually the suggested way to avoid that and still free range ducks with chickens together is to make sure the drake has enough female ducks to keep him happy, and then he will leave the chickens alone. Two might be enough, but raising him separately from the chickens and then reintroducing later also helps. Because then he doesn’t grow up thinking chickens and ducks are the same.

(So now that suggests that having a second coop would be good for separating the ducklings now, and then potentially the bantams later after the ducks get put back with the chickens. In the end you may not need a second coop, but I can tell you it is great to have a small empty space for the odd situations that are likely to crop up.)

Good luck, it sounds like you are having a lot of fun with them!

 

[Hgc]

A couple of ideas for you.

As you can see, your ducklings are growing at a phenomenally faster rate than the chicken chicks. You may want to consider moving the ducklings out. In fact, ducklings can graduate to no heat and acclimate to outdoor temperatures at a younger age than chickens can.

Second, at two and four weeks old, I would be combining the bantam chicks with the large fowl chicks immediately. That way they blend and establish pecking order at a younger age, which is easier than waiting until you have a huge size difference between them and trying to make older birds integrate with one another. But, with those big clodhopper ducklings in there, the bantams might get trampled. So another reason to separate the ducklings.

And finally a third reason to separate the ducklings: you only have 3 of them, presumably one male and two females. Two females might be enough to keep the drake satisfied when he reaches sexual maturity, but if he has been raised with chickens, he will not think twice about trying to mate with them. And that can have fatal consequences for the hens because their anatomy cannot accommodate a male duck’s penis. Usually the suggested way to avoid that and still free range ducks with chickens together is to make sure the drake has enough female ducks to keep him happy, and then he will leave the chickens alone. Two might be enough, but raising him separately from the chickens and then reintroducing later also helps. Because then he doesn’t grow up thinking chickens and ducks are the same.

(So now that suggests that having a second coop would be good for separating the ducklings now, and then potentially the bantams later after the ducks get put back with the chickens. In the end you may not need a second coop, but I can tell you it is great to have a small empty space for the odd situations that are likely to crop up.)

Good luck, it sounds like you are having a lot of fun with them!

Thank you for all the good advise, now I have been thinking about moving the ducks out. But, if I take the ducks from the chickens for play time, ducks get water, chicks get a container of dirt to play in, the ducks will cry like they are trying to find the chickens and my chicks do the same for the ducks, mainly my buff orpington. So, I've been trying to introduce the babies to the older flock. Most don't seem to mind, they met in there dirt container. Everybody was just mainly doing their own thing, when I put my buff in, she was flinging dirt everywhere and kept getting it in the babies eyes, so I took her out. This morning, I've put her in their brooder, and she seems overly aggressive. This is my very first time with chickens and definitely first trying to introduce babies to each other. My buff, torchic, is the most fiesty out of the older ones. She always seems to try to fight someone. When torchic is with the baby babies, she ran at one and hit her hard on the head, and the little baby cried and tried to run. It seems really aggressive, am I being over sensitive, or is that actually a problem. The picture isn't great, but that's my buff and a baby. The second is my bantam babies, a black sex line, and a black australorp.