Farm Fresh
In the Brooder
- Apr 12, 2017
- 2
- 10
- 24
I just wanted to share my duck experience for anyone interested.
We started off raising chickens a few years back, and decided last spring to add some ducks. After doing our homework, we decided on starting off with pekins. They were supposed to be the smartest, and even considered to be the guard dogs of the flock. Since I live in NY and there's a 6 chick minimum law, we ended up ordering 3 pekins and 3 khaki campbells. When the order arrived, there were 5 pekins and 3 khakis. We quickly got them settled in to the homemade brooder that we previously used for chickens. This turned out to be a messy mistake. If I ever had to raise waterfowl again, I'd take the time to build something with a grate floor and removable tray. By the end of each day, the only smell worse than their brooder was death.
Once it was warm enough to go outside, they went out to live and free range with the chickens. They ended up following the chickens everywhere, even back into the coop at night. They were pretty funny. If they saw a hose or yellow tomato, they'd come right up to us, but pretty much kept their distance other than that. Even when it was -20 degrees, windy, and snowing, they would stay outside splashing away in the pond or digging out a new mud pit. The drakes seemed to love to chase squirrels and robins in the yard. The coop definitely started smelling after adding the ducks, but it was much more manageable than when they were in the brooder in the house. Also, I was up to picking up 150lbs of feed per month.
This spring we decided to try to specialize in a specific breed of chicken, so we sold the ducks to a larger farm down the road. Since they left 1 month ago, the coop maintenance has dropped dramatically, the smell is all but gone, and we're still working on the same 50lbs of feed. We now have 16 chicks in the same brooder, and I'm willing to bet we can double that without having the issues we had with the 8 ducks.
In the end, I'm happy we tried it, but never again. For anyone considering, they absolutely made their presence known everyday in the yard, but the maintenance and costs just weren't worth it for us. I always read that there were chicken people and there were duck people, we are both clearly chicken people.
We started off raising chickens a few years back, and decided last spring to add some ducks. After doing our homework, we decided on starting off with pekins. They were supposed to be the smartest, and even considered to be the guard dogs of the flock. Since I live in NY and there's a 6 chick minimum law, we ended up ordering 3 pekins and 3 khaki campbells. When the order arrived, there were 5 pekins and 3 khakis. We quickly got them settled in to the homemade brooder that we previously used for chickens. This turned out to be a messy mistake. If I ever had to raise waterfowl again, I'd take the time to build something with a grate floor and removable tray. By the end of each day, the only smell worse than their brooder was death.
Once it was warm enough to go outside, they went out to live and free range with the chickens. They ended up following the chickens everywhere, even back into the coop at night. They were pretty funny. If they saw a hose or yellow tomato, they'd come right up to us, but pretty much kept their distance other than that. Even when it was -20 degrees, windy, and snowing, they would stay outside splashing away in the pond or digging out a new mud pit. The drakes seemed to love to chase squirrels and robins in the yard. The coop definitely started smelling after adding the ducks, but it was much more manageable than when they were in the brooder in the house. Also, I was up to picking up 150lbs of feed per month.
This spring we decided to try to specialize in a specific breed of chicken, so we sold the ducks to a larger farm down the road. Since they left 1 month ago, the coop maintenance has dropped dramatically, the smell is all but gone, and we're still working on the same 50lbs of feed. We now have 16 chicks in the same brooder, and I'm willing to bet we can double that without having the issues we had with the 8 ducks.
In the end, I'm happy we tried it, but never again. For anyone considering, they absolutely made their presence known everyday in the yard, but the maintenance and costs just weren't worth it for us. I always read that there were chicken people and there were duck people, we are both clearly chicken people.
