Chickens and Ducks

I have read of several accounts where people had chickens and decided to get ducks. It seems most only kept the ducks for a while and went back to chickens only.

For those of you who have raised both, or know someone who did, are you still raising both? Could you write a few sentences on your experience and decisions if you still do both or chose one over the other?

I don't meet your criteria because I don't even have chickens yet.  But, I've wondered the same thing.  As someone who's very prone to turn his property into a Beatrix Pottery storybook, I'm gathering all the information possible.  

Still, I thought I'd add my thoughts.  Chickens are a sure thing, but every other animal I get (other than dogs and cats) comes down to work measurement: what are the benefits derived based on the amount of work involved?  I wouldn't be getting ducks for the eggs, but for eating pests in the yard and garden.  Runner ducks came up for that, so that's what I'm considering.  Still, it comes down to weighing the time and effort of work involved against the benefits.

Hi, Josh! I have both, but here the rocky, clay terrain is kinda harsh on them, so our track record has been that we get them, keep them for a while, then hey tired of dealing with them, and eat them, and a couple years later realize that we miss them, and start over again, lol. We currently have several muscovys(1 drake), a couple Rouens/ several mutts(2drakes), and 23 chickens, mostly Buff Orpingtons, (3 cockerels). I give breed, because that can make a difference, too, because these birds all get along, largely because we are careful to choose breeds that are multipurpose and friendly.

As a kid, we had chickens, ducks, and geese, on my dad's farm, and I learned to really like duck eggs. If they're cooked right, I like them for eating, but they REALLY SHINE, in baking & egg nog. We also like to eat both duck and chicken.

Ducks are seriously messier, often louder, and pretty much always move away from people. So, much more difficult to catch, but far easier to herd than chickens. In the garden, they're also kinder to the soil around the plants, but harder on the leafy greens - and, have never messed with anything I've planted in containers taller than them. My chickens have torn up any plants they can get into. Both are great at reducing the pest population, but the ducks focus almost exclusively on insects, on the ground, but definitely love the tadpoles & the little bluegills hubby keeps stocking the pond with, in hopes of *us* having fish. The chickens will also go after the mice, spiders, scorpions, and snakes.

I do get tired of dealing with the ducks, but that's primarily because they're in a tractor, instead of a permanent enclosure, and our terrain is NOT critter-tractor friendly. So, that's not really about the birds, themselves.

Carla Burke wrote:Hi, Josh! I have both, but here the rocky, clay terrain is kinda harsh on them, so our track record has been that we get them, keep them for a while, then hey tired of dealing with them, and eat them, and a couple years later realize that we miss them, and start over again, lol.  

Carla, when I was reading through the critters-ducks category, I saw you posted often and I read a lot of the discussion. I think it was you who was trying to keep the ducks out of your livestock tanks or at least posted a reply to someone who was.

Those ducks seem to be unintentionally mischievous!

We have a flock of 26 chickens currently. My problem is that I love duck fat. Cut a potato into small shoestrings and fry them in duck fat. That is in my top 5 favorite foods. It just is not the same fried in anything else.

Thank you for replying!

If you've noticed Carla's name, you've likely noticed mine! I'm pretty opinionated on the subject - LoL!

Ducks *have* to have lots of water - Mallard domestics need more than Muscovy (totally different branch of the avian tree) but both make a total mess of it. They need sturdy buckets and bins for drinking and bathing and they need to be dumped, rinsed and refilled daily regardless of the weather. (Which is why Ms. Carla was trying so hard to keep them out of her goat tanks!)

Mallard domestics are much fattier, being northern water birds. Muscovy meat is more like lean beef. However, if you really love duck fat, try getting a grass raised goose to try - serious fat there!!!  I use 50/50 butter and goose fat to make my pastry if I manage to hide the goose fat from my son who also thinks like you do.

Mallard domestics are also more likely to be willing to eat slugs than Muscovy. However, not all Mallard domestics are equal. Indian Runners definitely have that reputation and I've seen one swallow our gigantic west coast slugs and ask for another, but I was sure she was going to choke on it. Personally, I found them way too flighty for my set up, but many speak highly of them, so I may have just gotten a bad pair. I have stuck to Khaki Campbell ducks but my goal is eggs, and they still have a reputation for the most eggs laid in a year. They are also good slug eaters, but if they've got chickens in the same area, they teach the chickens to eat slugs and then the chickens are faster and tend to get them ALL!

So I'll agree that ducks are messier and more work than chickens, but I don't see us getting rid of either any time soon. I'm supposed to be getting a new vegetable garden area and I really want a duck run surrounding it specifically for bug control and fertilizer production. Having your ducks where the water can be recycled as liquid fertilizer would be a big bonus in my ecosystem. People often use ducks in orchards, with their water moved around to a different tree every day or three, as a management technique.

If you're looking for a meat breed duck, I wouldn't go Indian Runner - tiny things designed for eggs. Even the Khakis are considered too small to be worth processing by most people. I would go for a larger breed. If you want them to be self-replicating, a few Muscovy would be helpful, as I use my Muscovy to set, hatch and raise my Khakis all the time. The Muscovy moms aren't thrilled when they realize the ducklings don't speak the same language, but they cope! I've never tried to use Muscovy to hatch chicks, nor chickens to hatch khakis - that's too big a difference in my books. Muscovy eggs take 5 weeks to hatch, most Noisy ducks take 4 weeks, and chickens only 3 weeks. I don't know if there's a heavy weight Noisy Duck breed that has a reputation for good mothering.

I have chickens and ducks in my small back garden and they both have their strengths.  For my climate, AKA slug central, ducks are invaluable.  I used to have a lot of plant loss due to slugs--one year there was a population explosion over my whole area and I got almost no vegetables that year;  but now with my two ducks on patrol, that's a thing of the past.  I lived in a different climate in my childhood, the high desert, and we had three ducks who cleaned up all the locusts one summer;  if you are plagued by invertebrates, ducks are a great answer.

Chickens on the other hand are wonderful on weeds--they eat pretty much every weed I have, barring one or two, and scratch up the ground, hoeing it in effect.  But while my ducks mainly leave my plants alone, chickens are quite happy to eat them all up;  so chickens don't get much access to my veg patch in the growing season, only when I need to tidy it up at the end or beginning of the season.

Ducks do need fresh water daily.  We have a male and a female who once had a big splash tub, but Girl Duck never used it so we stopped filling it--now they get two deep buckets daily for splashing and submerging their heads/necks.  I've read that ducks prefer to mate in the water, so maybe that's why Girl Duck avoided it!  But she was a rescue duck from a commercial farm, so maybe she just never learned to swim.

Jay Angler wrote:If you've noticed Carla's name, you've likely noticed mine! I'm pretty opinionated on the subject - LoL!

Ducks *have* to have lots of water - Mallard domestics need more than Muscovy (totally different branch of the avian tree) but both make a total mess of it. They need sturdy buckets and bins for drinking and bathing and they need to be dumped, rinsed and refilled daily regardless of the weather. (Which is why Ms. Carla was trying so hard to keep them out of her goat tanks!)

Yes, I have read what you have posted!

I am guessing that there is not a great solution for the duck water situation? I have a dry area of my chicken coop so I don't need a dedicated dust bath but I have seen dedicated dust baths with an overlap at the top to keep the sand in. Similar concept to my rabbit nest boxes where I have a lip on the leading edge to "peel" the kits off when the doe jumps out of the box.  

I say that to say even if you can contain the water, it sounds like they still make a mess of things. Certainly something to consider on my gently sloping property. Locating the duck water are up high so I can use the water to irrigate.

Josh Hoffman wrote:I am guessing that there is not a great solution for the duck water situation?...
I say that to say even if you can contain the water, it sounds like they still make a mess of things. Certainly something to consider on my gently sloping property. Locating the duck water are up high so I can use the water to irrigate.

You guess correctly, lol. If you think the beautiful, fresh clean water you JUST have them is going to stay clean as long as it takes you to click your heels 3 times, and say, "there's no place like home", you'll need to think again. If you have a natural-bottomed pond (which we have) rather than one with a man-made liner, that's probably the easiest solution. But, that also assumes it's not so far from the ducks' housing that they can't find it (which is what we struggled with for several years).

Carla Burke wrote:

Josh Hoffman wrote:I am guessing that there is not a great solution for the duck water situation?...
I say that to say even if you can contain the water, it sounds like they still make a mess of things. Certainly something to consider on my gently sloping property. Locating the duck water are up high so I can use the water to irrigate.

You guess correctly, lol. If you think the beautiful, fresh clean water you JUST have them is going to stay clean as long as it takes you to click your heels 3 times, and say, "there's no place like home", you'll need to think again.

These creatures sound like they are very interesting. Makes we want to say "challenge accepted" ha ha.

Our family gets a lot of enjoyment out of watching the animals have a chance to exhibit their natural behavior. The pigness of the pig as Joel Salitin would say.

I can see why you have them on and off.

For those who own both, if I may ask a rider question? I hope the original poster doesn't mind...

Is the manure handling similar or different between chickens and ducks? Are there certain considerations for each species?

Timothy Norton wrote:Is the manure handling similar or different between chickens and ducks? Are there certain considerations for each species?

I would say the general answer is no. However, ecosystem is a factor. I get the impression that chicken shit is much 'hotter' than duck shit, but is that because the ducks messy wetness requires more bedding for the same amount of shit? I would suggest that I have to work harder at making sure that if I'm adding more chicken shit to a compost pile, that I add more wet greens like veggie scraps to help raise the moisture level.

We keep both types of birds as healthy as possible, so from the 'bad' microbe direction, I treat them both the same. I let my piles sit a long time and if I'm using them for veggies, I tend to put stuff I'm sure is safe as a top layer with more questionable stuff a couple of inches down.

I keep both chickens and ducks for eggs and meat. The ducks are a bit more work (moving water, harder plucking, locking up for the night), but I like them better.  The eggs and meat are superior and they are gentler in gardens (but they are destructive on wet pasture if given enough time). Manure management in my system is a bit less work for ducks because I can put their pool wherever I need nitrogen. Ducks are also more entertaining. When given fresh swimming water, they will make anyone smile anytime. I still like chickens for their ease of handling and the variety they provide.

Since you are partial to duck fat, consider raising geese.  You will get a lot more fat from an animal that is much cheaper to feed.

I'm a backyard chicken keeper who has a longing for ducks.
The fat, eggs and meat all sound amazing.
The mess and noise do not.

I had been scheming on Muscovy as a retirement project, but the more I learn about them, the more I realize I won't be slaughtering any ducks I keep.
They sound way too personable, and as it stands, I only kill our chickens that are suffering  and it's still hard.
Without the fat and the meat as incentives,ducks are like cuter/wetter chickens that don't scratch and don't eat garbage(?).
Scratching and eating dang near everything are two of a chickens most useful/ hazardous qualities, imo.



I still have  fowl related retirement goals, geese are said to be real assholes by the time they are a good weight for harvest...

William Bronson wrote: I still have  fowl related retirement goals, geese are said to be real assholes by the time they are a good weight for harvest...

I know they are nothing to trifle with. I have not had any as part of the farm but have encountered them in the wild and they are pretty confrontational. I thought it was funny at first.

Josh Hoffman wrote:

William Bronson wrote: I still have  fowl related retirement goals, geese are said to be real assholes by the time they are a good weight for harvest...

I know they are nothing to trifle with. I have not had any as part of the farm but have encountered them in the wild and they are pretty confrontational. I thought it was funny at first.

There's a huge difference between wild and some breeds of domestic geese. We've got Heinz 57 geese (likely mostly Emden in them), most were raised by real moms (our recent ones, hatched out by Muscovy moms, and then passed along) which makes a huge difference compared to incubator hatched and raised by each other in a group.

So they're *very noisy* and they hiss at me a lot, but it's all show and I've had no aggression issues. I try to make sure that they understand I'm chief boss of the field - just not chief boss of the geese as that's Beetle the oldest gander's role. I suck up to the females a little by giving them food they like (apples and Napa cabbage are treats, which Beetle approves of.  

I think it's like many things in pemaculture. I'm quite sure there are farms with serious guard geese that not only sound the alarm, but actively chase off all intruders including humans. I live in a safe enough area that I want the alarm aspect as Eagles will attack birds in our field, but I don't want them too aggressive to 2-legs, because most humans who get as far as our field are allowed there.

Jay Angler wrote:

Timothy Norton wrote:Is the manure handling similar or different between chickens and ducks? Are there certain considerations for each species?

I would say the general answer is no. However, ecosystem is a factor. I get the impression that chicken shit is much 'hotter' than duck shit, but is that because the ducks messy wetness requires more bedding for the same amount of shit? I would suggest that I have to work harder at making sure that if I'm adding more chicken shit to a compost pile, that I add more wet greens like veggie scraps to help raise the moisture level.

We keep both types of birds as healthy as possible, so from the 'bad' microbe direction, I treat them both the same. I let my piles sit a long time and if I'm using them for veggies, I tend to put stuff I'm sure is safe as a top layer with more questionable stuff a couple of inches down.

I'd also have to say it depends on your ecosystem, soil, and goals. Our place is all clay & rocks, making it extremely difficult to even gather the wet duck manure - hence the tractor we keep our ducks in. I try to move the ducks, and let it just do whatever it's going to do, hopefully helping to build/ improve the soil wherever it goes. But, I do like to use their soiled water, greatly diluted, in my raised beds.

The chicken manure is hot, so I put it into the longer term compost, and use the (warm) goat & sheep manure deep in the raised beds, mixed into my mini-container-hugels. So, yeh - all the poop gets treated differently, here.

On noise and ducks, I've got around a dozen Ancona ducks, and find they are only noisy if they are talking to me (usually to let me know they would like to be fed now, thank you very much!).  Otherwise, if I hear a duck I check on them, because something is probably wrong.  

I've had both chickens and ducks, and like both of them.  My ducks have been a little messier with their water than the chickens were, but not really a lot -- I just move the ducks' water bucket and pan frequently.  I don't have chickens anymore because we found out that my daughter was really sensitive to their eggs (eating even just the yolk causes her autism to get bad again, which we only realized when we hadn't eaten any eggs for a while, and then tried them again).  So I sold the chickens and got some ducks, and -- after waiting several months for them to get old enough to start laying -- found that my daughter was just as sensitive to their eggs.  I still have some of the ducks (sold a few of them); I enjoy having them around.  But currently have a pack of puppies that think it's fun to chase a flock of ducks, so the ducks are penned up, which isn't so great.  I'm going to try to get the rest of them sold this spring, since we aren't able to use their eggs.  

One advantage ducks do have over chickens is that -- if you can let them free-range -- they will pick up a much higher percentage of their own diet, at least during warmer weather.  

I have 6 chickens light Brahma and Bielefelder, 20+ Ducks a large assortment. I don't have runners or Muscovies. I have 3 geese a pilgrim male, and 2 female Toulouse. I used to have turkeys too. They are all kept together. There is an inside area with nesting areas, branches for chicken perches, a food bowl and heated 2 gal bucket hung at head level(so the ducks cant bath in it), there is leftover goat hay for bedding(the stuff the goats decide they don't want to eat), then connected to the inside area is a fenced area with a large cement mixing tub for the water birds to bath in, and a food container, the ground is covered with stall mats here. They all go in these areas at night, and during the day they can come out have the run of everything. Our garden and orchard are fenced off for deer, so they only go in there if we let them in. We clean out the inside area as necessary, the stall mats get hosed off in the morning, the water is changed out in the morning and at night. Chickens tend to poop all over, so we have to clean off walls, etc. ducks/ geese are  contained to the ground/ cement tub. Chickens tend to get into things you don't want them too, trying to nest in the goat hay feeder and pecking at the goats when they try to eat, eating any exposed foam they can find, they are not as prolific egg layers as the ducks either. Duck eggs are big, goose eggs are huge, they all taste the same to me, maybe because they eat the same stuff? Our chickens are nosier than the ducks, especially the roosters, but they are more personable and friendly. Chickens do draw blood when they do peck you, ducks at most will pinch/bruise you, and that is if it is a really defensive broody momma. Roosters will attack and draw blood, especially strangers or people that dont know how to handle them, my mother in law will attest to that. There are a few of the ducks that are friendly towards us, but most of them only care about the food I have. Ducks are a bit hardier, chickens seem to die off faster and for no reason. We have had chickens/ turkeys up and disappear and reappear weeks later. The turkey came back with little ones in tow. You can find ducks pretty easily, even when they want to hide.

Chickens and ducks are both messy, but ducks are much more so because their poop is the really wet kind.
Chicken poop is a bit easier to handle and if you put a bit of DE on the poop board, it comes off easily. [You can't really collect duck poop.]
Chickens will scratch any mulch you have around your trees. Ducks won't.
Ducks need more water than chickens to be happy, and keeping them in water is harder if you have freezing weather, otherwise, the cold doesn't bother either, usually.
Herding ducks is much easier than herding chickens: they do stick together through eating, bathing, resting., although mine [white Pekins] at first seemed afraid of the water, but once they got into it, I could not get them out of it even at night!..
Because chickens cannot see as soon as the sun drops below the horizon, you can just have a light in your coop and they will go in. Ducks have a much better night vision.
Chickens give you lots of eggs. Ducks give you much larger and delicious eggs, but not as many, although some ducks are being bred to make a lot of eggs.
[The Khaki Campbells is said to lay 250- 340 eggs a year, which rivals most chickens].
Chickens are much easier to pluck because they do not have the thick down and feathers that water can't get through to scald them. For ducks, the timing has to be just right and it helps to put a bit of dishwashing liquid, but really, it is hard to find someone who will process your ducks for you. Also, because they put on a generous layer of fat [and you really want to harvest that wonderful fat!], their skin is very fragile, and yanking on feathers will sometimes rip the skin! I would rather clean 10 chickens rather than clean 3 ducks, and I love duck meat and duck fat. So much so that I may wait until fall to harvest my ducks, [molt done and thick down!] and then I may attempt so shave them next time!
Chickens dust themselves to get clean, so it helps to have a covered area where there is sand. Ducks bathe, and to eat, they MUST have enough water to put their head in or they can't clean their  nostrils.
So it's up to you to figure out what you can best put up with to choose between ducks and chickens.
Ducks are much more resilient than chickens. I've had only one up and die on me on day 2.  Chickens, even with the best of care, can die for not apparent reason. Ducks also don't have mites as easily as chickens do. Of course, keeping them clean is important, but they do keep themselves cleaner.
If it weren't for the butchering and cleaning the carcass, I would only raise ducks: they are much more intelligent, too...

Muscovies for me!

I had chickens for 30 years, mostly for eggs. Problem is, I don't care for chicken meat.
Now, with a larger lot (but still in a city), I have muscovies. They make almost no noise, so I can keep a drake for breeding (as opposed to roosters!). They run in the shaded side yard under the fruit trees, so moving their bathing tubs (https://www.homedepot.com/p/Black-Large-Concrete-Mixing-Tub-A-42/318924309#overlay) around to water the trees is useful. They are wood ducks, so don't need water to breed in. I grow greens for them to browse under the trees.

Muscovies can still fly: the wings have to be clipped yearly, like chickens.

I prefer their eggs - larger and more % of yolk for sunny side up on toast. The fat is supposed to be healthier for us than other fats (and tastes good). I harvest the drakes and older females, deboning all the meat to grind into sausage. If there is too much winter squash, grated squash goes into the sausage, too. Some of the fatty skin goes into the sausage, but most gets rendered into fat and chitlins. I like their meat so much better than beef.

Ducks are so much easier to fence than chickens: a 2' plastic fence on poles stuck in the ground will contain them.

Their drinking water is in 5 gallon food-grade buckets with a 6" hole in the top half of  the side. The duck house shares a wall with the greenhouse. The buckets are in the greenhouse, next to holes in the wall. As the ducks get the water dirty with bits of their chicken feed, it gets dumped onto the greenhouse plants. So with this water near their food and two tubs in the trees, I only have to maintain their waters every few days for a dozen ducks.

The muscovies have a shorter egg season and lay less eggs than Khaki's, but they do lay plenty. Toward the end of summer the cleanest eggs go into 5-gallon buckets of lime water for "waterglassing". I end up with three buckets half full of eggs, which carries me through winter and early spring.

CONS: they just won't eat so many of the things I used to feed the chickens. Partly, their bills can't handle food that the chickens can tear into. I haven't been able to convince them to eat sunflower seeds, even if I shell them first. I grew some wheat, but they don't know to get the seeds out of the heads.

My ducks don't like squash bugs. I tried growing winter squash (with its healthy crop of bugs) next to the run, so that I could let the ducks in. In 15 minutes they had gnawed into three half-grown butternuts and eaten NO bugs! (I later read that squash bugs are related to stink bugs, but still!). And they ate any of the vines that grew through the fence into their run. (This year I will make trellises for the winter squash, since the bugs are so prolific.)

Maybe if I only fed them once a day instead of at-will, their hunger would encourage experimentation of more foods - but that would be too much work on my part. So despite muscovies' reputation for being good foragers, at least when compared to chickens I don't agree.

Nina Wright wrote:Muscovies for me! ... I grew some wheat, but they don't know to get the seeds out of the heads.

Have you ever tried soaking the wheat heads for a day or better two? That might help them.

and wrote:

Maybe if I only fed them once a day instead of at-will, their hunger would encourage experimentation of more foods - but that would be too much work on my part. So despite muscovies' reputation for being good foragers, at least when compared to chickens I don't agree.

My Muscovy tend to be grass and bug eaters, and they do seem to have individual tastes. Some will eat small slugs, others refuse. Venus Fly Trap - the name says it all! She'll snap house flies right out of the air with ease.

However, ours are loose in a 2 acre field during the day. They are happy to come to bed, because they know I'll give them a scoop of chicken feed once they're all in their secure night housing. Since I have to lock them in anyway, feeding them at that time works for me. By morning, they're hungry enough to go out and forage. Definitely interested in different foods than Noisy Ducks.

I live in a mostly dry climate in the city with two ducks and two chickens. I keep the chickens (Salmon Faverroles) for eggs, and they do deliver even in the harshest winters (we got 28F for a few hours one night) and the ducks (Mallards) for entertainment although these days they are sometimes laying 2 eggs a day and I really don't how duck eggs smell so I give these away to a happy neighbor. I find both adorable, as they follow me around the yard. I keep the chickens in a fenced yard, about 700sq feet and although the ducks start out in the morning from the same enclosure, the fly out to the rest of the yard and go checking for bugs in the lawn and by the trees. The ducks have flown out of the yard a few times but I was able to find them or came back the next or following day. I find the chickens more aggressive with my plants and they sometimes mess with the irrigation system because they scratch the mulch, but they are easier to clean up after. The ducks like to sit by the kitchen glass door, sometimes knocking, asking for cherry tomatoes and making a massive mess on the concrete around the kitchen door. They all eat out of my hand and they're both adorable when they walk and look at me and peck at my shoes. I don't plan to eat any and I just wish there was less of a mess.

I have a mixed flock chicken and would like to add ducks for slug control. The chicken are great in keeping the population of grasshoppers and ticks down, but slugs are a problem still.
I had decided for Indian runner ducks, but I hear they are noisy. Also, if they lay their eggs all over the place, I would have to look into another breed.
Khaki Campbell? Muskovy?

Also, will the ducks mess up my pond, or would the pond ecosystem balance itself out?

Thank you in advance!

Their drinking water is in 5 gallon food-grade buckets with a 6" hole in the top half of  the side. The duck house shares a wall with the greenhouse. The buckets are in the greenhouse, next to holes in the wall. As the ducks get the water dirty with bits of their chicken feed, it gets dumped onto the greenhouse plants. So with this water near their food and two tubs in the trees, I only have to maintain their waters every few days for a dozen ducks.

Would this situation be enough water for them to also clear their nostrils?

William Bronson wrote:

I had been scheming on Muscovy as a retirement project, but the more I learn about them, the more I realize I won't be slaughtering any ducks I keep.
They sound way too personable, and as it stands, I only kill our chickens that are suffering  and it's still hard.

Ducks are personable yes.  Drakes though...

I've killed cockerels to eat, and I've killed a dying hen, but the only two birds I was quite happy to give the chop:  drakes.  Cockerels get a bad rap, but they are nothing to drakes.  We had three drakes and three ducks, and those drakes were horrible to each other, to us, and even to the ducks.  It was a pleasure to kill and eat them.  And they were so tasty, even the 2+ year old one (husband: "I knew he was a big softie inside").

G Freden wrote: We had three drakes and three ducks, and those drakes were horrible to each other, to us, and even to the ducks.

I have found issues with both roosters and drakes who weren't raised by real moms in a flock. If someone asks me to take a male, that's my first question.

That said, even sibling Drakes can start abusing each other in the spring, and a ratio of 3M to 3F will make it worse, as males will happily manage a harrum. There are people who have large mixed flocks and situations where they can have multiple males of the same breed, but in my situation, my only solution has been to keep same breed males as separated as possible.

Muscovy drakes will actually kill each other fighting. The two I have go to different "overnight" housing, but despite having 2 acres to play in during the day, there are issues. In contrast, the older Muscovy puts up quite well with the Khaki Drake in the same housing.

There are exceptions to every rule - I find animals have personalities, and have had life experiences which affect their behaviors. I know that there are things I'd like to do to my field which would make this issue less of one, but Hubby has different ideas and concerns than Drakes fighting, so I solve the problem by eating any spares before they start fighting, and count on being able to reach out to my community if I end up needing a male due to some mishap. They're self-replicating under the right conditions, after all! (Particularly Muscovy - those girls live to breed! It's why a number of US States ban them.)

My fields have pools of water in the winter and dry in the summer so for meat in movable pens I could have ducks in the winter and chickens  in summer.

I've had ducks for 8 years up until last year.  My market for eggs dried up and I was getting too many, even with 3 ducks.  Khaki Campbells are good layers, but very skittish and noisier than all the rest.  Cayuga's are bigger and very striking but don't lay very often.  Silver Appleyard were the last ones I had.  Big and much calmer and quieter.  They lay quite often, too.  I have used a baby pool for ducks but the last one got a hole in it.  I wish I had a pond.  Duck meat and eggs are delicious and the fat is amazing.  I love watching the ducks forage in my yard but they are loathe to come in at night.  I used to have to round them up.  They stay in clicks unlike chickens. Drakes are rapey and even try to mount my hens.  This could kill the hen.  I miss having them and wish I could find regular egg buyers.  I would have to say I liked the Silver Appleyards the best, although years ago we had a very sweet muscovy that would let you pick her up, which is very rare for ducks.

Hey Permies,  I forgot to mention that I put up several shelters for ducks and chickens. I found two discarded truck caps, two discarded trampoline tops (the part that you bounce on).

I covered the ground with the trampoline tops, held them in place with earth staples. The trampoline tops are very sturdy and water goes right through them. Then I set the truck caps on several cement blocks (the kind with three holes) on top of the trampoline tops, one on each corner and one in the middle on the long sides of the truck cap. This raised the top of the truck cap nicely so I could reach easily underneath to grab the water bowls. I made sure the back window of the truck cap faced south for winter solar gain. In late fall, I would buy some hay bales and put them around three sides of the truck cap, leaving the south side open. During sunny days, water wouldn't freeze (unless there was a high wind). If it was warm enough, I would get the hose out and fill the kiddie pool for the ducks and sit back for great show of splashing and dunking. What fun!

Since the trampoline covers are porous, hosing them down removes droppings. This idea was great, no muddy mess in the swimming pools, water buckets or in the feed bowls. I highly recommend this system to anyone who has free-range ducks.

In spring, the hay bales were strewn around the poultry yards so the chickens would do their job, composting the hay while they search for insects.

My Muscovy ducks LOVED slugs! I had several pieces of plywood cut the same width as the aisles in my garden. I flipped them over every morning for the ducks and chickens to have breakfast. One flip and the wood was set up for the next day. The chickens and ducks were VERY interested in the insects under the boards!

Easy peasy to control slugs. And keep ducks and chickens amused and fed.

I have muscovies and chickens.

The muscovies are easier in that they are great foragers with lower water needs than other ducks and they readily reproduce at rates that predator pressure can't usually match. If you have a couple acres you can let them roam and that's pretty much all you need to worry about.

Problem with them is they are not super versatile. Good meat but lean and a little tough if you let them run wild. They only lay in spring. They also are hard to contain, making them a more stubborn threat to gardens than chickens.

So I prefer chickens and would gladly do away with muscovies if I had to choose between them.

Josh Hoffman wrote:

William Bronson wrote: I still have  fowl related retirement goals, geese are said to be real assholes by the time they are a good weight for harvest...

I know they are nothing to trifle with. I have not had any as part of the farm but have encountered them in the wild and they are pretty confrontational. I thought it was funny at first.

Our goose was a Toulouse goose and was an excellent part of our chicken and duck flock.  By the time he was big I was quite intimidated by him, but my husband (who grew up with his grandfather having farm animals, geese included) would scoop up the goose and then the goose would let me pet him! I really prefer ducks because they were always less aggressive than our chickens and I love cooking and baking with their eggs. They also were less flighty than our chickens and better with the children. However we learned from the exterminator after a bad fly incident, that flies prefer their poop to anything else. In hindsight I would have a manure system in place before incorporating the ducks. I did not have permaculture knowledge and believe with the knowledge that we would not have had a fly problem!

G Freden wrote:

William Bronson wrote:

I had been scheming on Muscovy as a retirement project, but the more I learn about them, the more I realize I won't be slaughtering any ducks I keep.
They sound way too personable, and as it stands, I only kill our chickens that are suffering  and it's still hard.

Ducks are personable yes.  Drakes though...

I've killed cockerels to eat, and I've killed a dying hen, but the only two birds I was quite happy to give the chop:  drakes.  Cockerels get a bad rap, but they are nothing to drakes.  We had three drakes and three ducks, and those drakes were horrible to each other, to us, and even to the ducks.  It was a pleasure to kill and eat them.  And they were so tasty, even the 2+ year old one (husband: "I knew he was a big softie inside").

This is so neat! I had the opposite experience with roosters and drakes. Our drakes were so sweet and oh man my kids still talk about the scary roosters that tasted so yummy!

Great conversation! Totally hardcore -- love it!

Aside: If there is any possibility of domestic ducks interacting with wild waterfowl, or ponds where they might alight, the current avian flu thing is potentially deadly to the whole flock. And to the chickens too. Watch your back folks. My 2c.

Josh Hoffman wrote:

Their drinking water is in 5 gallon food-grade buckets with a 6" hole in the top half of  the side. The duck house shares a wall with the greenhouse. The buckets are in the greenhouse, next to holes in the wall. As the ducks get the water dirty with bits of their chicken feed, it gets dumped onto the greenhouse plants. So with this water near their food and two tubs in the trees, I only have to maintain their waters every few days for a dozen ducks.

Would this situation be enough water for them to also clear their nostrils?

My holes are lower and larger than those pictured, so, yes, they can dunk their heads.

If I were to keep an eye out for ducks on the marketplace or locally networking, which would be recommended for a hot and humid homestead with chickens and the ability to have small ponds/runoff reservoirs on the property?