Variety Housing Question

[sweetshoplady]

I would like to have different kinds of birds. I've ordered guineas from Ideal (who by the way referred me to BYC for guinea questions - which I thought was very nice of them). I have pheasant eggs on the way. I want Pilgrim Geese and a couple of ducks. And I'd like some turkeys. Y'all are a bunch of enablers (

)

My chickens free range - I am working on a coop for them - going very slowly but it will be nice when finished. My banty chickens are also getting a little coop and a tractor for now.

I want to build an enclosed aviary thing which surrounds how much I am not sure as who can live in there or do I need separate aviary things to keep peace between the ducks, geese, pheasants, and turkeys. I want the geese for garden help so I am going to add a pond for them. The ducks are for meat. Any animal that will help me in some way is going to be welcome. I live on a lake but am going to deny access to my geese and ducks as there are alligators in there - why they will have to make do with a pond.

I want the guineas to free range with the chickens and possibly share the coop with them or they can sleep in the garage. (where the chickens sleep now).

I'll have to take some before and after pics because I am turning the area around my house into a garden with fruit, nuts, and vegetables and I think it will be nice. I am going to not let these new additions run free with the chickens as I don't want the roosters fighting, plus fencing in that area will keep the chickens from going through the barbed wire and into the neighbors vacant land where there are lots of predators.

 

[MissPrissy]

I think you know I don't advocate mixing fowl. For some people it might work out okay but from experience and things I have seen it just isn't the best way in the long run.

Waterfowl need their places to play and splash and make an ever loving mess with water and poop. None of the other birds will appreciate the mess either. You will get tired of it too. Male ducks, drakes, can be viscious and nasty during mating season. They don't care if the female is a chicken or another duck. If they want to mate they will. Violently and brutally at times.

Guineas are strange. Once they get used to home they will hang around free range. they do a good job of keeping down mice and ticks and snakes too. They are meat eaters. If they ever take a notion they don't like a certain chicken (duck, goose, turkey, pheasant) they will stalk it and hunt it down until they eliminate it. They also can cross breed with chickens and pheasants. Ugly creatures come from those eggs.

Turkey won't put up with fuss and muss from the other birds. They also poop giant poops. They also are endangered by the fact that they don't have great immunities and often contract disease from other fowl. Blackhead is one. It is usually fatal.

Pheasants are flight and smaller than all the other birds. You wuld do best to protect them and give them a flight pen.

You would be doing yourself a favor and a huge service to the birds to build them all their own little coop and run and let them live out their lives without competing with another fowl.

They don't live that way in the wild. Why should they be forced to be housed that way in a domestic setting?

Again, you will have some people tell you they raise them together all the time without troubles. I don't buy it. The troubles have most likely gone unnoticed.

Also it is not a good idea to try and hatch all the eggs in the same incubator.

 

[RIVERA69R]

I WOULD LOVE TO GET SOME CHICKENS I LIVE IN VENICE FLORIDA. DOES ANYONE KNOW THE LAWS ABOUT HAVING CHICKENS IN FLORIDA? THANKS IN ADVANCE

 

[arlee453]

RIVERA69R, you might want to repost your question in a thread of it's own over in the category:

Local Chicken Laws & Ordinances (and how to change them)

Click on the link below, and then click the 'Post New Topic' link in the upper right hand portion of the screen.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewforum.php?id=37

I don't have much help for the OP here, but I do keep my parakeets and button quail quite happily in the same aviary - it works because one is a ground dwelling bird and one is a flight/roosting bird. That way I can provide the needs of the quail on the floor of the enclosure and the needs of the parakeets (feeders and such) hung at the top.

I think the needs of the various species you mentioned would require separate areas for each, but I don't have any direct experience with any waterfowl...

 

[fourfeathers]

I agree with Miss Prissy based on my own experience. I had ducklings and chicks together when I first started with the poultry obsession and it was a disaster. The chickens really don't appreciate the mess and are soooo much easier to keep their coop clean if kept with their type. Ducks can mess a waterer or floor up within 5 minutes. Also, the matter of breeding can be an issue. I had a drake that wanted to mate with the pullets I had and a roo that wanted the female duck. It just wasn't a pretty site, and I separated them real quick. The drake would have killed the chickens. I don't know the behavior of guineas, but there are other posts on here about mixing them. Turkeys can be susceptible to diseases. I really would do the housing first and build the flock gradually with the ability to separate if need be.