Been keeping ducks and chickens together for over a year now. We're currently raising 6 Red Sex-Links and 6 Khaki Campbells (all about 6 days old as of today) together. We have 12 fully grown Red Sex-Links and 5 adult Khaki Campbells living and laying together happily in the same outdoor run. I'm certainly not an expert, but...
Ducks at 6-7 weeks aren't even close to fully feathered out yet, I'm guessing? That means that they can only float for a little while before becoming waterlogged. They love to splash and play in water from day one, but they aren't yet equipped for the aquatic life. They need to be fully feathered and have a functioning oil gland. It's just my opinion, but I think that having water to splash in helps the oil gland to develop.
Here's what we did with the first flock of ducks, and plan on continuing to do with the new, mixed flock. We start them out with a little tiny bowl of water about an inch deep. It's just barely big enough for 2 ducklings to squeeze into at once. (They don't seem to mind sharing.) The chicks pretty much ignore it except to do a taste test. At about 1 week we put just enough warm water in the bathtub (after a thorough cleaning) that the ducklings can still put their feet down. We put them in and stay and watch them constantly until they start getting tired and/or waterlogged. At that point we take them out and return them to the brooder. We do this daily. Very gradually, we increase the water depth, but still watch for signs of tiring and being waterlogged. We don't attempt to dry them off. It just seems to irritate them.
Once they are well feathered we move them to the grow-out pen. We use one-half of our screened in porch that abuts on the side of the poultry run. The new girls and the old girls can hear but not see each other. We think that helps with flock integration. When they are about 6 months old we move them into the general population.
We did lose two chickens to drowning in the duck's pool in general population. Since we always found them in the morning we guessed that they were roosting on top of a structure near the pool at night, jumping in the dark for whatever reason and landing in the pool. We moved the structure further from the pool and haven't had that problem since.
As for raising a single duck; It's been my observation that ducks are even more flock oriented than chickens. They do everything together. Yes, you can raise just one, but I don't think it'll be truly happy.
Ducks at 6-7 weeks aren't even close to fully feathered out yet, I'm guessing? That means that they can only float for a little while before becoming waterlogged. They love to splash and play in water from day one, but they aren't yet equipped for the aquatic life. They need to be fully feathered and have a functioning oil gland. It's just my opinion, but I think that having water to splash in helps the oil gland to develop.
Here's what we did with the first flock of ducks, and plan on continuing to do with the new, mixed flock. We start them out with a little tiny bowl of water about an inch deep. It's just barely big enough for 2 ducklings to squeeze into at once. (They don't seem to mind sharing.) The chicks pretty much ignore it except to do a taste test. At about 1 week we put just enough warm water in the bathtub (after a thorough cleaning) that the ducklings can still put their feet down. We put them in and stay and watch them constantly until they start getting tired and/or waterlogged. At that point we take them out and return them to the brooder. We do this daily. Very gradually, we increase the water depth, but still watch for signs of tiring and being waterlogged. We don't attempt to dry them off. It just seems to irritate them.
Once they are well feathered we move them to the grow-out pen. We use one-half of our screened in porch that abuts on the side of the poultry run. The new girls and the old girls can hear but not see each other. We think that helps with flock integration. When they are about 6 months old we move them into the general population.
We did lose two chickens to drowning in the duck's pool in general population. Since we always found them in the morning we guessed that they were roosting on top of a structure near the pool at night, jumping in the dark for whatever reason and landing in the pool. We moved the structure further from the pool and haven't had that problem since.
As for raising a single duck; It's been my observation that ducks are even more flock oriented than chickens. They do everything together. Yes, you can raise just one, but I don't think it'll be truly happy.
