So i live with my sister in Az since her husband builds bridges for a living and is moved all over the place and i myself have chickens. I have a 8x12 coop for my chickens but its 3 feet of the ground. My BiL wants ducks for when hes at home so im doing research for him. Any info you could give me would be helpful. Will they go up the chicken ramp to the coop or do they need a house on the floor? What kinda feed do they need? Can i keep them in the same run with the chickens? How do i tell at the feed store which babies are male and which are female? what kinda housing do they need if they dont sleep in the coop? Thanks in advance.
Hi.. we have 3 ducks and 6 chickens,,I have learned over the years to separate the two. Ducks are extremely messy,wet,smelly! (don't get me wrong ,I adore them) whereas hens should be kept dry-ish, and whatever water you have for the coop,the ducks will soon create a disgusting mess of it..making life fairly hard . You can just do what we do,,have a divider for the outside run so the ducks could swim and get as wet as they want,,and the hens can roam around without becoming a soiled mess. Then for a shelter,all ducks need is an overnight house they can be locked up in from predators. We use a large doghouse ,insulated for winter,,and they can even spend the rainy days outside, where as the hens are concerned,I prefer to keep them inside during cold/wet weather. I thoroughly enjoy keeping both chickens AND ducks,so I had to come up with a way to keep them happily, and easily maintained. I feed my ducks the same thing I give my hens, and in the winter I add cracked corn. (get this at the co-op) If you want I can post a couple pics for you to see how we do it with the run ect...it really works out great hope this helped... oh,,and it's almost impossible to sex babies under the age of I'd say,,3 or 4 months., or when they start to sexually mature by 6 months,,depends
Female ducks are the only ones that quacks. The two runner ducks I have are around 10 weeks old. I know for sure that the grey is female and the black is male. I want to sell them if you are interested. Runner ducks do not need a lot of water for they seldom swim. A baby pool would be just fine. Do your self a favor. Do not put them in with chickens. They will muck up the water all the time. Ducks have to have water in order to eat. They take a crop full of grain and then wash it down with water. That is why the water gets so dirty. Here is the ducks I have. PM me if interested.
If you hunt around on this forum, there are some great posts on getting set up with ducks. But be forewarned, everyone has their own ideas, so you'd have to make your own decisions. Ducks are messy, but great fun. I believe that you need at least a small pool for them, I have a small one in winter and a large one in summer for my 6 ducks (2 runners, a pekin, 2 muscovies, and a mutt duck), the mutt and the runners are in the pool the most, but everyone takes at least a few turns a day. Then I put out small bowls for drinking and face washing, this is most important. They MUST have clean water to wash their faces and drink while eating. They need a predator proof night space, and day space if daytime predation is a problem. I don't have chickens, but from what I have read and from living with ducks, no way would I mix the two. If you do a lot of research and set things up properly, they are not at all that hard to keep. Good luck. Oh and if noise is an issue, I recommend muscovies. My other ducks, except of course my drake, are NOISY. Not a problem for us, but if you have neighbors that are not fond of early morning quacking, it might be for you. But muscovies can fly, so we clip their wings. It's easy. Oh yeah, forgot this too. If you are getting a few ducks, be sure to get the right drake to hen ratio. Again, it is a subject that people don't always agree on, but having seen first hand how "loving" the drake gets in mating season, I would DEFINITELY have at least two hens to my one drake. Less than that and you run the risk of the hen getting over bred and getting hurt. Three girls to one boy is really even better. Hope this helps.
When asking about ducks the first thing you need to know is they need water all the time. They don't need a pond or pool to survive, just something deep enough to dunk their entire head in, but in my experience they are not happy unless they can swim. I do not house or pen my ducks, they have an optional housing they can go into if they want but they never do. They power through snow and once and live rain any day any time. Ducks are fun.
I do keep chickens and ducks together easily, but I have a HUGE area, so the chickens avoid the water splashing of the ducks.... You need deep enough dishes so they can get their heads in, and it is best that they have a kiddie pool to swim. My ducks are hardy and will go out in the snow. When I break ice over their pond, they dive right in and play in the ice, eating it. If you have a smaller area, I would separate the ducks from the chickens if possible.
