Suggestions for duck/chick condo or duplex?

[Chick-N-Law]

Does anyone run their ducks and chickens together? I have two call ducks and will be adding bantam couchins or other small chickens this spring. I'd like to house them together if possible. Safety and ease of cleaning are important. Any suggestions?

 

[MissPrissy]

Ducks are very messy. They are better suited to have a place of their own not in with the chickens.

 

[Chick-N-Law]

What about dividing the coop? Maybe with a run on each end? Or could they share a run?

 

[Chick-N-Law]

Anyone else have suggestions on how to house both bantams and call duck harmoniously? I would really prefer not to have to build two separate buildings. Am I out of luck?

 

[Critter Crazy]

I housed my chickens and ducks together. The only thing is, the ducks are messy, so you will be changing bedding twice as much. But Other than that, they get along just fine. The ducks keep to themselves, as well as the chickens. My birds free ranged, so I didnt get alot of messes outside, but If you have yours in a run, the ducks can turn it into a boggy area. Especially if you give them a tub or something to swim in, which they need and love.

Liek you suggested earlier, dividing the coop, and making the ducks a seperate run, might be in your best interest.

 

[Chick-N-Law]

Thanks Critter Crazey for your reply. I was thinking of putting in a small pool for the ducks, but maybe they should have a separate run. I cannot seem to find any books or articles on housing for ducks. Most everything is about chickens. If anyone knows of other sources for information, I would appreciate the info.

 

[MBLayfield]

I house my ducks with my chickens and they do get along just fine together but this spring the ducks will be moving into digs of their own complete with thier own place to splash. I won't house them together anymore. The ducks are messy with the water and its always dirty event tho my waterers hang 6 inches off the ground. Underneath the waterer and all around it is the frozen water from their splashing. Its messy and inconvenient to change the bedding almost weekly due to my babies, so they get a new area that they can make a complete mess of and its just fine! Its right next to our irrigation ditch that cuts through our pasture. Can you say instant pond from early spring through late fall?

I forgot to mention that I have 5 khaki campbells and four bei so maybe just one or two ducks is much less messy

 

[Aun <HIS><]

I have my white pekin ducks and chickens semi-together. I have a divider half wall between them in the same coop, and the ducks have a gate door that closes them in. The chickens go on the duck side, until the ducks get tired of them and chase them out, but the ducks can't go on the chicken side. I deep litter on the chicken side, and clean the ducks completely out every other day. On the opposite day, I put new hay down for them. They really are very, very messy! Chicken poo is fairly dry most of the time, but duck poo is extremely wet and there's a LOT of it. When they all go in at night, the ducks go in to the chickens side, until I go out and tell them to get on their own side and close the gate. They don't really understand why they are segregated!

I free range all my birds, so I don't know what you would do about the run, since you'll have two different flocks. I got mine all at the same time, so they flock together. I guess you could see how they do when you try to integrate them, and if it doesn't even out after a couple of months, you can put in seperate runs off of each side of their house.

 

[Aun <HIS><]

As far as information, there are a few good sites where you can find out everything you'd like to know...:

http://www.liveducks.com/links.html
http://www.featherside.com/Poultry/Ducks/BRKDucks.html

 

[AhBee01]

I used to have my ducks and chickens together, but found that the ducks just were way to messy! also my male Muscovy and my Cochin roo started to fight! I have a run and coop for my ducks and a coop and will have a run for my chickens this spring! We free range the chickens mostly, but want a protected run so if we leave for the day we don't have to find someone to close them up at night!
Our duck pen has a seperating door so when we hatch ducklings they will be safe from the other ducks!
We have a smaller coop for that run!
We no longer keep water in the coop it is out in the run, and that has helped alot. The ducks are never closed up at night unless it is very cold. They prefer to sleep outside when it is warm!
There run is made of hardware cloth!

My ducks remember the chickens and go and visit them often, when I let them free range. So far no fighting between the new roos and my male duck, but we will see this spring!

When I was a kid we had chickens, ducks, and geese altogether in one big run, and we had 2 coops, most of the birds went in the big coop, and the geese took the small coop, their run was pretty large and they all seemed to get along.
Brenda

Here is the duck run, it doesn't show the coops!