It wasn't ever my intention to have chickens or ducks, in fact from a few years earlier I had decided I didn't want anymore animals but in May this year, my daughter and I took my 2yr old grandson to a commercial farm for a day out, one of the kiddie features is holding a chick while the farm hand gave an educational talk. My grandson wasn't interested in holding the chick so my daughter, not wanting to interrupt the farmhands speech, held the chick and that was it she was smitten! I have to say though, the farm are very irresponsible, they are so focused on selling the chicks they don't vet who they sell them too, and they told us wrong info, neither myself or my daughter had any idea what so ever how to look after chickens, nor did we know what it entails, we didn't even know what they need! The farmhands are so flippent about it, they're like 'oh its so easy - they practically take care of themselves'. My daughter has always liked the idea of having a duck and had spotted the ducklings, the farmhand (who is actually the farm manager) told us a chicken and duck can live together no props, also said its fine for them to live in a rabbit hutch, told us only give duck water to drink and not let it swim cos it could drown (which is correct as incubated ducks lack the waterproof oil they get from the mother) he put the two in a cardboard box and said they'd be fine to live in that box for a couple of weeks. We took them home, followed the scarce instructions they'd given us, gave them the food and water we'd been given for them - woke the next morning to finding the duckling dead. I phoned the farm, they claimed this had never happened before, said they'd give us a replacement, we weren't comfortable with that idea, felt like it made nothing of the little ducklings life, so we decided to bury our little one and buy another duckling, but this time I told the farmhand to make sure it was healthy enough not to die. A week into having our two beauties we decided they'd be better off having one of their own kind, so my daughter went back to the farm and got another chick and duckling. I spent hours and hours researching and the more I found out the more I realised how much wrong information the farm gave us, they told us at 8 weeks to put them onto layers feed, I only found out a couple of months ago they are supposed to have growers until 18 to 20 weeks. My daughter found having kids and trying to look after and manage the birds too much, so I adopted them and they are now officially mine, however my daughter and grandson live with me so still get to enjoy them. Once we realised the two ducks are drakes and I read all the horror stories about drakes trying to mate with chickens if they don't have females, we then got our two female ducks and are hoping they will pair (seem to be so far but test will be when spring comes, mating season). I then decided I'd like two flocks of four and in August a breeder friend of mine had a hen and chick he said I could have, it was then I found out mine should have been on growers and that giving them layers at such a young age could have set them up for liver and kidney damage, plus two of my females (one duck, one chicken) have stunted growth which could very possible be due to the wrong feed. My friend advised me to put all back on chick feed until our new chick was 8wks old, then said to put all including my laying hen, on growers until my chick is 18/20 weeks, (she's now almost 12 wks - my two pullets and drakes are now approx 24/26 wks, my laying hen is 29 wks, my duck hens are 19 & 20 wks) and all are growing well and now I have my two flocks of four
