NEW HERE AND EXCITED TO BE HERE

[big_daddy_rooster_420]

Hi @big_daddy_rooster_420
Welcome! I'm glad that you found us.
That broody pic is fantastic!
How are you liking ducks? I'm thinking about branching into them next year.

This is a great place to be. Any and all questions can be answered by someone. The wealth of knowledge and experience here is mind boggling.

Enjoy, and I'll see you in the trenches.

Loving the ducks but it was a VERRRY steep learning curve over the past 3 months. We were very wrong when we thought it would be easy to add "just a few more". The mother hens did ALL the work with their babies, honestly I think the only change we had to make was buying starter feed.
In comparison we got the ducklings from a craigslist breeder at a few days old. They were tons of work. We had to spend a lot of time cleaning their brooder (which moved from bathtub to kiddy pool in living room), and constantly placing different objects to contain their food/water mess which never really worked. The incubator hatched ducklings never seemed as vigorous as the natural hatched chicks, despite lots of attention to their diet and environment, and we had a few that didn't make it which was very sad.

However after those hard ~6-7 weeks, they mixed in with the chicken flock no problem, and now they fit in fine and aren't much more work and are tons of fun to watch.
I will say that we had ducks in mind when we built our coop. If you have to build or modify a coop for ducks then it wouldn't be so easy.

 

[drumstick diva]

Thank you for joining us at Backyard Chickens

 

[KLIL]

Hello and Welcome to BYC
My names Krystal.
I have created a thread (like a baby book) for My Flock Journey since I start. If you wish to take a look.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/my-flock-journey.1258290/

Beautiful photos! Cant wait to see more of them.
Lovely to meet you.

 

[rjohns39]

Hi and welcome to BYC We're so happy you've decided to join us
Ducks are naturally a PITA in the brooder, but fine once out on pasture. I just 14 in the brooder...

 

[big_daddy_rooster_420]

Yes it's been such a relief having the ducks on pasture. The biggest additional chore (beyond what the chickens already need) these days is just rinsing out and refilling their swimming pool.