NY chicken lover!!!!

[Lynzi777]

Hey Everyone!
Guess what finally got set up today!!!

Jamie has a HUGE pile of wood chips in his yard so I decided to take some of those to use for the flooring in there to get them up off the mud. I figure they'll have a good time scratching thru all of it too. I can add more and more over time if need be too. WHY oh why didn't I have my FIL make me this sooner?!?!? I just love it!

 

[rancher hicks]

Maybe you will find it this winter attached to a dead squirrel.
Hahaha!! I started with 2 chicks from a school project 4yrs ago and by the end of our 2nd year I had 50.

Perhaps. I did catch a small squirrel in a rat trap.

It's those big greys that are tough. I found the hav a hart tripped but no one in it. The bread has been eaten but I suspect by mice. The trap on top of the chicken run was tripped too but no body there. I can only hope he/she got a bloody nose and won't be back.

As long as they leave my chickens alone I don't mind them but when they get in the coop or run or garden then it's WAR!

 

[Mrkngpen]

Well, it's now around 5:30pm and I just saw all three hens settled together on a bough of a pine tree about 10 feet up in the air. Doesn't this suggest that they aren't going back to a proper "home" at night?

I will still hang up a sign but I'm leaning towards finding them a home...

 

[boskelli1571]

Well, it's now around 5:30pm and I just saw all three hens settled together on a bough of a pine tree about 10 feet up in the air. Doesn't this suggest that they aren't going back to a proper "home" at night?

I will still hang up a sign but I'm leaning towards finding them a home...

It sounds like you are 'home' to them! Where are you located??

 

[Mrkngpen]

About 15 minutes SE of Albany.

 

[boskelli1571]

Sounds a lot like either they live close by and are visiting, or someone decided they didn't want them anymore and stopped feeding them and they have gone wandering looking for food. Do any of your neighbors have chickens? They generally speaking don't go very far from home if they're being cared for well. Maybe ask around your area?

Also, who all in here keeps chickens with ducks and other fowl successfully? I'm having a debate right now about whether it can be done. I'm staring out at my backyard right now where ducks, chickens, a goose, and guineas are living and free ranging in harmony, as they have been for the last seven years I've had them, and I'm being told that you can't do that because it will cause disease and injuries. So do I just have a really weird setup that has somehow worked for this whole time or does everyone else manage to mix fowl too? I've just been told it's against common sense to keep them together and that telling people they can is spreading misinformation, so I just want to check here if I'm actually wrong on this before I keep telling people you can do it. I know turkeys and chickens are considered a bad idea if your area has blackhead, but I never considered that ducks, chickens, and guineas shouldn't be kept together unless the drake starts trying to mate with the chickens or something.

I'm following the same thread with interest, since I intend to get ducks next year. I have seen several instances where ducks/geese/chickens peacefully co-exist in the same yard at the same time. Can't think of a good reason why they wouldn't.... I 'get' the don't brood them together because one like damp, the other dry bedding, but otherwise ??
I see you raise Welsh Harlequins - any chance you may have some ducklings for sale next year??

 

[demp4]

Also, who all in here keeps chickens with ducks and other fowl successfully? I'm having a debate right now about whether it can be done. I'm staring out at my backyard right now where ducks, chickens, a goose, and guineas are living and free ranging in harmony, as they have been for the last seven years I've had them, and I'm being told that you can't do that because it will cause disease and injuries. So do I just have a really weird setup that has somehow worked for this whole time or does everyone else manage to mix fowl too? I've just been told it's against common sense to keep them together and that telling people they can is spreading misinformation, so I just want to check here if I'm actually wrong on this before I keep telling people you can do it. I know turkeys and chickens are considered a bad idea if your area has blackhead, but I never considered that ducks, chickens, and guineas shouldn't be kept together unless the drake starts trying to mate with the chickens or something.

I had ducks chickens guineas and turkeys all ranging in yard at one point. They did fine. None died on me.. I also had a broody hen hatch ducklings one year and raise them. I did have a separate duck house for awhile but in the winter I put them in with the chickens and then when we moved they were in with the chickens too.. they got along well.

Hey Everyone!
Guess what

Jamie has a HUGE pile of wood chips in his yard so I decided to take some of those to use for the flooring in there to get them up off the mud. I figure they'll have a good time scratching thru all of it too. I can add more and more over time if need be too. WHY oh why didn't I have my FIL make me this sooner?!?!? I just love it!

It's beautiful!!!!!

 

[Cass]

Quote:
"Also, who all in here keeps chickens with ducks and other fowl successfully? I'm having a debate right now about whether it can be done. I'm staring out at my backyard right now where ducks, chickens, a goose, and guineas are living and free ranging in harmony, as they have been for the last seven years I've had them, and I'm being told that you can't do that because it will cause disease and injuries. So do I just have a really weird setup that has somehow worked for this whole time or does everyone else manage to mix fowl too? I've just been told it's against common sense to keep them together and that telling people they can is spreading misinformation, so I just want to check here if I'm actually wrong on this before I keep telling people you can do it. I know turkeys and chickens are considered a bad idea if your area has blackhead, but I never considered that ducks, chickens, and guineas shouldn't be kept together unless the drake starts trying to mate with the chickens or something."



I keep everything together. Guinea fowl, chickens, chicks, ducks, ducklings.....there are problems....the ducks make a HUGE mess of the coop. (I won't house them together for the winter cuz their poop is so wet it freezes, not dries, like chicken poo) The Guinea fowl are mean to the chickens. The drake does try to mount the chickens, however I did hatch 19 ducklings this past spring, so he is doing his real job in addition to chicken duty.

BUT they all are alive, laying eggs, growing up, laying more eggs and going broody. Soooo....regardless of the "problems" with the mixed species, they are doing what birds are supposed to do. And they are all happy, as birds go. Pecking for food and running toward me when I enter the driveway or open the back door.

I don't have turkeys. No reason, except I think turkeys are ugly and huge and I don't have a pot big enough to dunk them to pluck them if I butcher them. So I have no idea if blackhead is a problem in my area.

Oh and I have hatched chickens too, so even tho the drake thinks he's a chicken sometimes, the roosters are taking a turn often enough to yeild fertile eggs for hatching.

 

[horsekeeper]

Also, who all in here keeps chickens with ducks and other fowl successfully? I'm having a debate right now about whether it can be done. I'm staring out at my backyard right now where ducks, chickens, a goose, and guineas are living and free ranging in harmony, as they have been for the last seven years I've had them, and I'm being told that you can't do that because it will cause disease and injuries. So do I just have a really weird setup that has somehow worked for this whole time or does everyone else manage to mix fowl too? I've just been told it's against common sense to keep them together and that telling people they can is spreading misinformation, so I just want to check here if I'm actually wrong on this before I keep telling people you can do it. I know turkeys and chickens are considered a bad idea if your area has blackhead, but I never considered that ducks, chickens, and guineas shouldn't be kept together unless the drake starts trying to mate with the chickens or something.

Chickens and turkeys together. Muscovy ducks, standard and bantam chickens, and geese free ranging together, but geese go in their own secure pen at night because they bully the ducks when closed in together. No problems in the two years I have been doing it. I have lost a few birds here and there to unexplained causes, but it does not seem to be any disease they re sharing. I keep the non-muscovy ducks in a separate pen because they are so messy.

 

[Beer can]

  I keep the non-muscovy ducks in a separate pen because they are so messy.

Ducks are as messy, almost as bad as pigs when in the brooder, stink!
Muscovy's arn't?