thinking about raising ducks

[Zigapor]

awww, that's awesome!!! can I ask what his name is??? i'm curious! My husband has requested that we name one of our chickens Strahen (we were watching a show with Michael Strahan at the time, lol)

 

[fowl farm]

I wouldn't worry about the chickens falling in/messing up the duck pool. If it's just a little kiddie pool from the store they'll would be able to touch bottom if they fell in. Duck are VERY messy with water. As for feed, you will need to buy special feed for the ducks, at least at first. I feed my adult ducks chicken feed, but they need duck feed when they are little. Someone else could you more info on that.

 

[Ilovemyduckies]

awww, that's awesome!!! can I ask what his name is??? i'm curious! My husband has requested that we name one of our chickens Strahen (we were watching a show with Michael Strahan at the time, lol)

His name is Phoenix. Out of my three roosters, he is by far my favorite.

 

[NHchicks]

I am so excited after reading this thread. I think ducks are so funny, especially the indian runners. I don't know how hard it will be to find some in the spring tho.

Thanks for all the great info. Is there packaged "duck feed" like there is chicken feed? And do they eat leftovers like chickens do? Of course, I have enough slugs to probably keep them stuffed continually.

One other question, will they wander into the neighbor's yard, or do they generally stick close to home? My chickens pretty much stay on our property, but we're putting up a 4' mesh fence along the property line anyway. I'm thinking that would be enough to keep the ducks from wandering past it. We had guineas but they would wander too far away.

I have a black lab mix 8 yr. old dog. She is incredible predator control. I never have to worry about predators with her around. I'm already getting worried about her advancing years. The chickens are locked up tight as a drum at night tho, and hopefully that's what ducks do too - go home to sleep at night.

 

[Zigapor]

I plan on locking all my birds up at night. Our property is just too big to fence off at the moment (would cost way too much!) I was wondering if a donkey would help with predator control though, or a llama? Someone in my area had posted an add on Kijiji (like craig's list in canada) selling her guard llama, lol, i thought that was cute, but do they really work?

 

[goose4]

I wouldn't worry about the chickens falling in/messing up the duck pool. If it's just a little kiddie pool from the store they'll would be able to touch bottom if they fell in.

We lost a couple of chicks when they were small (under 2 months old) I am not sure if they were perching on the edge and just fell in or if they were drowned by the ducks or geese. Now that they are older the chickens have no interest in the kiddie pool. Even though it gets dumped every other day the water gets pretty nasty and the chickens would rather drink from the chicken waterers or the cleaner water pans.

 

[fowl farm]

My chickens weren't out at 2 months unless supervised, but I can see where that would happen. I guess I was thinking of adults when I wrote that.