To Duck or not to Duck - Nearby Neighbors

[Chipmunk Chicks]

Hmmm. Definitely seeing pros and cons. What attracted me initially is:

1. Could get naturally flightless breeds. 1/4 of our fence is only about 4ft high, and I had to add and repare netting to keep the chickens in that section. So if we go back to chickens (had to take a break due to a health thing thats resolved), thinking the fence would need an upgrade. And a simple baby gate could keep them off the deck stairs and deck.

2. No scratching/dust baths everywhere. We have some blueberry bushes that the chickens kept trying to murder that we had to fence and then unfence to get at the berries and then immediately re-fence…but it’s just a few bushes so a whole permanent fence and gate seemed dumb.

3. Pest control. The chickens helped with this too, but not whatever attacked my squash. (Do ducks eat fleas and ticks? the chickens DID seem to help with that?)

4. Cuteness, no pecking, potential for a male if we decided to breed (roosters are banned here).

5. Fewer diseases.

6. More steady egg production and more nutritious eggs.


Cons seem to mostly be:

1. Mess

2. Changing water all the time

3. Noise (does anyone know the decibel level of a quack vs a cluck vs an egg “song”?! Would love to know how much more annoying they could be compared to hens)

. I am probably overthinking this. Maybe we should just try it with the idea that perhaps we rehome them.

Ohhh last thing - can you even get sexed ducklings? I don’t see them online, but aren’t some breeds pretty reliable to sex by beak color? I don’t want to end up with multiple boys to process. Which is also technically not allowed unless I go to my friend’s farm to do it.

Yes, you can get them sexed. Different sites might have different availability that way, and different breeds may be more or less reliable. We started with a drake and three females. We recently lost our male, but Metzers would replace him at no charge. We have up to a year to decide if we want to even go ahead with that though, since we still have the three females. When I was initially looking though, for example Cackle only had Magpies SR. No idea why. But most breeds are available sexed. I would include in your research breeds that continue to lay over the winter, like our Welsh Harlequins will, but not all might.

Decibels??? No idea. Loud quacks might still be quieter than a Welsummer eggsong but who knows lol

 

[New duck mommy 2021]

Also considering ducks. I don’t want to hijack the thread, so hopefully OP is okay with this, but do you have any pictures of your destroyed lawn? Just wondering since my mother in law’s idea of “destroyed” would include our current back yard, because we have dogs who dig some, etc. Like are free-ranging ducks (in a 1/4 acre fenced area) going to be worse than chickens and dogs?

Also, are there breeds that are happy with a kiddie pool? Or would all need to be on a lake or something? We would be converting a chicken setup if we decided on ducks.

I have a few fish ponds but also kid pools for my ducks
Mine love the kid pools
I have pekin , khaki Campbell
Offspring from them and Swedish
All of them use the kid pools
I found to save the lawn I keep the kid pools on my brick under my covered patio so the splashing water doesn’t get them digging the lawn
I also put fake grass around my pond to stop any digging and keeping mud out of it
That’s a few tricks that can help save the lawn
If there is water they will dig holes and I have had to run around filling them so they don’t get hurt

 

[BabyGotQuack]

Hmmm. Definitely seeing pros and cons. What attracted me initially is:

1. Could get naturally flightless breeds. 1/4 of our fence is only about 4ft high, and I had to add and repare netting to keep the chickens in that section. So if we go back to chickens (had to take a break due to a health thing thats resolved), thinking the fence would need an upgrade. And a simple baby gate could keep them off the deck stairs and deck.

2. No scratching/dust baths everywhere. We have some blueberry bushes that the chickens kept trying to murder that we had to fence and then unfence to get at the berries and then immediately re-fence…but it’s just a few bushes so a whole permanent fence and gate seemed dumb.

3. Pest control. The chickens helped with this too, but not whatever attacked my squash. (Do ducks eat fleas and ticks? the chickens DID seem to help with that?)

Not sure if ducks eat fleas & ticks, we’ve got grasshoppers bad here and they love those!

4. Cuteness, no pecking, potential for a male if we decided to breed (roosters are banned here).

5. Fewer diseases.

6. More steady egg production and more nutritious eggs.

Not gonna lie I HATE chickens for serval reasons, a lot of them you listed. Hands down when it comes to chickens vs. ducks I’m picking ducks, even knowing how messy and what pains in the butt they are.

Cons seem to mostly be:

1. Mess

2. Changing water all the time

Yes they are very messy, I only do pool water once a day. Their water buckets in the coop I only have to do a couple times a week

3. Noise (does anyone know the decibel level of a quack vs a cluck vs an egg “song”?! Would love to know how much more annoying they could be compared to hens)

Not sure on the decibel level, but I’ve had chickens who love to egg song and I have ducks who love to hear themselves talk. The majority of my ducks I would say are quieter than a typical chicken egg song. But I have 3 LOUD MOUTH DUCKS! But it’s not something that’s happening all day long. It’s usually when they’re excited or need something. Every once in a while I can hear them in the coop at night but again it’s not all night. A couple quacks and then back to silent. Drakes on the other hand are super quiet! I find chicken noises super annoying, but I love hearing the ducks quacking, so does my husband.

. I am probably overthinking this. Maybe we should just try it with the idea that perhaps we rehome them.

Rehoming is hard, atleast in my area. I don’t know if I would go into it with the idea of rehoming. This is gonna be an unpopular opinion but I would consider a duck dinner in that case pleas nobody burn me at the stake

Ohhh last thing - can you even get sexed ducklings? I don’t see them online, but aren’t some breeds pretty reliable to sex by beak color? I don’t want to end up with multiple boys to process. Which is also technically not allowed unless I go to my friend’s farm to do it.

Yes you can get sexed ducklings. I use metzer farms and have been super happy with them! I haven’t ever seen sexed ducklings at feed stores such as TSC, it’s just a gamble.

The only breed I know of that is sex linked by beak are welsh harlequins and I know it’s not 100%. In my case of the 3 I have it was accurate. But I think there’s lots of variables to go along with that.

 

[New duck mommy 2021]

Not sure if ducks eat fleas & ticks, we’ve got grasshoppers bad here and they love those!

Not gonna lie I HATE chickens for serval reasons, a lot of them you listed. Hands down when it comes to chickens vs. ducks I’m picking ducks, even knowing how messy and what pains in the butt they are.

Yes they are very messy, I only do pool water once a day. Their water buckets in the coop I only have to do a couple times a week

Not sure on the decibel level, but I’ve had chickens who love to egg song and I have ducks who love to hear themselves talk. The majority of my ducks I would say are quieter than a typical chicken egg song. But I have 3 LOUD MOUTH DUCKS! But it’s not something that’s happening all day long. It’s usually when they’re excited or need something. Every once in a while I can hear them in the coop at night but again it’s not all night. A couple quacks and then back to silent. Drakes on the other hand are super quiet! I find chicken noises super annoying, but I love hearing the ducks quacking, so does my husband.

Rehoming is hard, atleast in my area. I don’t know if I would go into it with the idea of rehoming. This is gonna be an unpopular opinion but I would consider a duck dinner in that case pleas nobody burn me at the stake

Yes you can get sexed ducklings. I use metzer farms and have been super happy with them! I haven’t ever seen sexed ducklings at feed stores such as TSC, it’s just a gamble.

The only breed I know of that is sex linked by beak are welsh harlequins and I know it’s not 100%. In my case of the 3 I have it was accurate. But I think there’s lots of variables to go along with that.

Pekin mom and khaki dad I was able to sex link babies at birth
My chocolates are girls my blacks are boys
But it’s also a pain when selling them as I know what they are and can’t lie
I would much rather not know the sex
I let the school hatch a batch of my eggs and all 6 were boys
Usually I get 50/50 or 70/30 more girls

 

[Aunt Angus]

Just my 2 cents:

My ducks are WAY louder than my chickens. WAAAAAY louder. And not just my Calls. My other breeds are louder, too (Welsh Harlequin, Runner, Saxony, Swedish, Hookbill - and the Pekin is the loudest BY FAR). They are super duper messy (what lawn? didn't I used to have a lawn?). They don't lay as often past their first and second years. I get maybe 6-8 duck eggs a week now from 8 ducks. But I LOVE them (Calls, in particular, are awesome little critters) and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

 

[BabyGotQuack]

Pekin mom and khaki dad I was able to sex link babies at birth
My chocolates are girls my blacks are boys
But it’s also a pain when selling them as I know what they are and can’t lie
I would much rather not know the sex
I let the school hatch a batch of my eggs and all 6 were boys
Usually I get 50/50 or 70/30 more girls

Yes I’ve also done this, also with a pekin mom and khaki dad. But as far as “purebreds” (is that the right word?) the only ones sex linked by beak are welshies right?

If selling I agree it’s better just not to know

 

[BabyGotQuack]

Just my 2 cents:

My ducks are WAY louder than my chickens. WAAAAAY louder. And not just my Calls. My other breeds are louder, too (Welsh Harlequin, Runner, Saxony, Swedish, Hookbill - and the Pekin is the loudest BY FAR). They are super duper messy (what lawn? didn't I used to have a lawn?). They don't lay as often past their first and second years. I get maybe 6-8 duck eggs a week now from 8 ducks. But I LOVE them (Calls, in particular, are awesome little critters) and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

 

[AmeliaBedelia]

Just my 2 cents:

My ducks are WAY louder than my chickens. WAAAAAY louder. And not just my Calls. My other breeds are louder, too (Welsh Harlequin, Runner, Saxony, Swedish, Hookbill - and the Pekin is the loudest BY FAR). They are super duper messy (what lawn? didn't I used to have a lawn?). They don't lay as often past their first and second years. I get maybe 6-8 duck eggs a week now from 8 ducks. But I LOVE them (Calls, in particular, are awesome little critters) and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

Huh. I had read the eggs usually didn’t taper off until at least year 3. Sad day - that was one of my “pros” over chickens.

 

[AmeliaBedelia]

Hmmm. Then maybe for my neighbors’ sake I need to go back to the hens idea. They were fine with the hens before; not sure if they’d feel the same about quacks. Sad.

 

[BabyGotQuack]

Huh. I had read the eggs usually didn’t taper off until at least year 3. Sad day - that was one of my “pros” over chickens.

I have a khaki who is 3 (I think) and she is still a reliable layer, winter aside.