Wyandotte chicks and cayuga ducklings, advice?

[violentpeach]

Hello, this is my first time raising birds. I grew up in farm country and have plenty of exposure to farm animals, but my family never had chickens, so I'm trying to do my due diligence to make sure i get things right.
I've got four wyandotte chicks and two cayuga ducklings headed my way this week. I grew up seeing ducks and chickens together so didn't think much of it. I made a post asking for some advice about raising all the birds together in a local backyard chicken facebook group and was met with a lot of hostility about how this was a bad idea and would ultimately be bad for the birds. Have I made a mistake? I've glanced through this forum and have seen several posts with ducklings and chicks together in the same brooder. Will i be fine keeping them all together? Is there anything I should be cautious of if so? I've done a fair amount of research and haven't seen any red flags on raising them all together, but since others seem to think this is a bad idea, I just wanted to delve a little deeper into the subject since i've never personally raised birds. Any advice or tips would be appreciated.

 

[springvalley123]

Ducks need the brooder to get cooler faster, and they need water to stick their whole head into. Ducklings get bigger much faster than chicks, being 6X hatch size in 14 days, but they don't get very mobile like chicks do. So ducklings are comparatively much easier to contain than chicks.

A few ideas to help with this: Have a small wading pool to use as the containment for the ducklings, and a box or other small wading pool for the chicks. Surround with an x-pen or chicken wire, or even cardboard to contain them.

I used the dog waterers that have a screw in wide mouth bottle, and drilled holes to make the water level deep enough for the ducklings. You'll need to have something in the waterer, to keep the ducklings from getting into it, because they don't have a mother to keep them from swimming too much and getting too cold.

You could put your heat sources closer to the chicks than to the ducklings to account for the temperature.

Overall ducklings are very wet and messy, and chicks need it dry, so it'll just be extra work to keep them clean, the more space you have, the easier that'll be.

Best of luck and enjoy the babies!

 

[sylviethecochin]

I've raised them together plenty of times. Generally, the chicks start using the ducks as seating about a week in. So long as your water situation's properly managed, and they're not two-day-old tiny bantams, there should not be problems.

I always have a cool and a warm end of the brooder. The cool end of the brooder should be about 70F, the hot one should be 90F the first week and decrease by 5F every five days/week. This allows the littles to adjust to temperature change more easily when they leave the brooder.

Here's a few ways people have made mess-free duckling water:

Punch a hole in the side of a water jug so that the ducklings and chicks can get their heads inside, but not their bodies.

Put a regular waterer (ducklings need to be able to cover their nostrils to clean them properly, so it needs to be at least as deep as a duck's beak) inside a wide plastic or rubber pan so that there's an extra layer between the water and the bedding.

Get a hanging waterer and put it about three inches off the ground. Raise as ducks and chicks grow.

Of these, #1 is the most successful. EDT: So long as the hole's the right size, obviously.

 

[Alexandra33]

Wonderful information provided above. I, too, have brooded bantam chicks and Call/Black East Indie ducklings together successfully, though never put enough thought into it to come up with fancy ideas to keep the brooder perfectly dry. Somehow, everything still turned out well regardless. Certainly ensured adorable pictures!

Only factor which made for a difficult situation later on was drakes. Since raised with bantam pullets, they felt these were their kind. You can imagine the rest. I was forced to intervene. Female ducks, however, pose no problems.

~Alex

 

[violentpeach]

those are some precious babies! i'm really excited, albeit a bit nervous, for mine to get here. i appreciate all the advice.