I am trying to prepare myself for the coming of the ducklings, lol. I ordered 6 golden 300 hybrids, 2 white golden hybrids, 2 cayugas, 2 black swedish and 3 "assorted" ducklings from efowl. I also have 11 runner duck eggs with promising embryos. So here is my question, we intend to fence off our pond and surrounding area for them, but we aren't planning on covering it as they will be in a smaller enclosure with their house at night (predator safe). In general we have mostly night time predators. The web sites say that domestic ducks are too heavy to fly, is this true? If not, do they jump and flap short distance like chickens do or do they actually fly like wild ducks? Another question I have is, I have an adult guinea hen, 2 week old barred rock roosters and a spitzhauben egg in the incubator. Can I mix any male runners I hatch with them? I know guineas and chickens do well together, but I haven't heard anything about ducks and guineas. I just want to seperate the males from the females until I intend to breed them and I worry about rehoming the males, after hatching them and raising them for awhile I doubt I will be able to not worry about them going to a good home.
