Would you choose ducks over chickens?

[duckluck]

I'd say anyone concerned about the cost of feed for either should consider a bantam breed, no matter whether they choose chickens or ducks. The bantams sure do eat less!

 

[ARose4Heaven]

Ducks. I have a lot of chickens and only 1 pair of ducks. Rouen ducks. If I could learn to like duck meat, I would dump the chickens in a heartbeat. But have yet to find a way to make duck meat cook up tender. My Duck-hen laid eggs last summer, but stopped when winter hit. Her eggs were about the same size as chicken eggs, and I could not taste any difference.

Today I separated the ducks from the chickens because the Drake is a bully with my chickens. And yes, ducks are messy!

 

[Miss Lydia]

One thing you have to look at also is the age of your children, there will be lots of poop and unless your going to be hosing off the yard 3 or 4 times a day they will be falling in it or picking it up wanting to know what is this mommie or stepping in it, it's only natural but can get pretty messy. My daughter freaked out when my grandkids would come out side bare foot and step in duck poo.

 

[duckking]

I just don't find the ducks that messy.

When they were in my house as ducklings, I couldn't wait to get them out.....talk about messy and smelly! But once they were outside, I just don't seem to notice it. I don't leave food or water in their house at night, so I only need to attend to the bedding every couple of days or so when it gets a bit damp. When their pool was frozen over, it was dry as a desert in there and I just cleaned it out when I started to smell it when I stuck my head in, which I do every morning when I let them out. Even then, I just remove some bedding and throw in clean white shavings and straw if it's cold. They don't go in there during the day at all. Granted, it has been raining/snowing here most of the winter so far, so their run is wet anyway, meaning that when they high-dive into their pool and it splashes everywhere, it doesn't make a difference! We have sand over pea gravel in the run and their poop just seems to wash away. When they spill stuff, the chickens come over and clean it up.

I guess everything is relative. We got our drake from a friend who wanted to get rid of her ducks and just keep her chickens because the ducks were too messy. Am I'm the only loon who doesn't seem to think the ducks are a mess?

l don't know, I love my ducks and chickens. I would have a huge problem if I had to make that choice.

EDIT*** I do have to qualify that we didn't put them outside until the beginning of October, so we have not gone through a summer with them, but they will have lot's more room in the spring/summer/fall to roam.

 

[Mistyray_lynn]

LOL..... Thiswas not helpful at all.

I was kind of thinking I should just for the chickens. I know chickens. Well at least enough to not feel like I'm learning a foreign language. Then you people go and make ducks sound so darn cute and fun.

Hmmmmm, more thinking to do, I guess. I do think I'm going to go ahead and get chickens again. Still considering the ducks. I need to do a bit more research on breeds.

Thanks for taking the time to share you insights. It is muchly appreciated.

 

[Dances with Ducks]

I think for most of us duck lovers it's the charm, personality and relative intellegence of the duck that has us hooked.
I never had chickens so can't make point by point comparison but I know choosing the right breed makes a big difference.
I keep falling in love with my Welsh Harlequiins over and over again. They are as good a layers as the Khaki Campbells, which I have also kept, but the WH have some unique characteristics that make them so much more appealing and useful. For instance my Campbells would occasionally go into bouts of quacking for no apparent reason. They would just stand in the middle of the pen and quack for about five minutes and then stop, even the mature two year old would do that. Never had that happen with my WH except for the young hens. The young hens go through a phase when they are very opionated about everything and aren't afraid to let you know it but that phase doesn't last. Oh sure there are the occasional times after they mature when they actually have something to complain about so they will quack, that just tells me to get out there because their food bowl is empty, or someone got stuck on the other side of the fence, or there's a fox in the yard!! Most of that is avoidable and the ducks are locked in their houses at night and so never disturb anybody's sleep. In fact the neighbors all have told us how much they enjoy the occasional duck noises they do hear.
A drake only makes very quiet noises. So if you pick a breed that goes broody you can have ducklings hatch out in your own backyard, which is something everyone should have a chance to experience. I don't think you can keep a rooster in town because of their crowing so if you want the joy of seeing babies come into the world from your city backyard, ducks are the way to go. I have to mention that Welsh Harlequins are one of the few domestic breeds that are at all reliable for going broody.
Plus, and this is really rare, you can identify the sex of the WH duckling by its bill color. That really comes in handy. I don't mean to turn this into a commercial, but if you do decide to go with ducks I think your chances of being happy with them will be pretty high if you go with the Welsh Harlequin.

This photo comes from http://www.mysticprairie.net/slide_show.php
edited to credit photo

 

[Miss Lydia]

Another pic for the cover of a Magazine, enter it please. send to [email protected] in jpg format that is a beautiful picture!

 

[Wifezilla]

I agree with everything about the Welsh Harlequins

I had several breeds before I settled on the WH ducks. Boy am I glad I have them. In our climate, I think ducks are great. I imagine in a wetter climate ducks could be a pain. Sounds counter-intuitive, but our relatively low humidity makes duck mess less messy.

Now as for chickens, I have only chicken sat. I LIKE chickens but I have a mild chicken egg allergy so I didn't get any. But I do think their tendency to scratch up things could be put to good use. Ducks just tend to squash everything down. I am seriously considering a mixed flock if I can manage a coop cheaply.

As for noise, chicken hens are very quiet. My ducks are NOT quiet. They are not obnoxiously noisy, but I have one of those ducks that just quacks her heard off for 10 minutes for no reason. She is calming down though. Like dwd said, it appears to be a teenaged girl thing

If noise was an issue I would get moscovies. They are really quiet, but you do have to either have a covered run or clip wings.

In the garden, if you let ducks in in Spring BEFORE you plant, they will eat up bugs, slugs , and even the bug eggs which will really cut down on your pest population. Also let them lose in the garden after you harvest. During growing season, heck no! They will eat anything green and tender so fast it will make your head spin. You can enclose your plants in poultry wire and let them forage around the plants. That will cut down on the bugs, but do not let them near your unprotected plants!

When I used this set up 2 years ago....

The ducks would nibble off anything that poked through the poultry wire.

 

[Amiga]

Quote:
I didn't think my ducklings were that messy. They were a bunch of work - but I did not expect them to be otherwise. I think expectation and time available to deal with them really affects the assessment. I don't have a full time outside-the-home job. My schedule is very flexible. So my outside work was scheduled around their brooder cleanups! And outside, I just need to keep some oak leaves around the edges of the pea gravel where they swim, rake out dirty straw and sawdust from time to time depending on the weather. Since I mulch my garden beds anyway, it's a good way to get double-use from that material.

The joy-to-mess ratio is very high for me.

 

[PlumTuckered]

I have both but if I had to pick one, it would be the Ducks. I love my Chickens but I LOVE my Ducks! My Ducks are much more entertaining, sooooooo easy to train and they can melt my heart just by looking at me
I've had 60+ chickens for almost 5 years, Ducks for 2 years and a month ago started giving some away to local folks that wanted to start raising chickens. I've decided to get it down to a dozen chickens and add more ducks. I am allergic to chicken eggs but my Husband loves them so I figure a dozen hens will be all I need.

I find both messy, yes Ducks are the messiest of the two but I don't mind a bit.
If I'm having a bad day or feeling blue all I have to do is go out and spend half an hour with my ducks and my mood is totally reversed.

I promise you this, if you have a chance to see/hold a duckling you will fall hopelessly in love

Michelle