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Do any of you have chickens and ducks?
We are redoing our yard (yay for no more lawn!) and I have been doing a lot of research on both chickens and ducks. I have checked with our animal control and our only regulations are that we have no roosters and no more than 6 chickens. There have not been any regulation put in place regarding geese, ducks, or rabbits for our town.
We are looking at building our coop in September of this year and letting it sit over winter to see how it does and fix anything that we hadn't thought of prior to getting chicks and goslings Spring 2012.
So if any of you have chickens and ducks that are housed together, is there anything you wish you would have known when you started? Anything you would have done differently? We are looking at several different breeds of chickens and most likely at muscovy ducks.
Thanks!
Re: Do any of you have chickens and ducks?
I am the 99%.
We were thinking of getting them a little later than that simply to avoid the sexing issue. What age would you recommend? With them getting over your fence, was that with clipping their wings?
I am sooooo jealous. We live in suburbia and can't have ducks or chickens. That's a big goal of ours when we move to our "forever home" with more land.
Mother Earth News has a really cute "pickin' chickens" iPhone app http://www.motherearthnews.com/happy-homesteader/chicken-breeds-with-pictures-zb0z10zgri.aspx
My friends with farms have had good luck with Khaki Campbell ducks. Mother Earth News article on duck breeds: http://www.motherearthnews.com/sustainable-farming/raising-ducks-ze0z10zhir.aspx
I pretty much go to Mother Earth News anytime I have a homesteading question. I just love them.
I should totally take a picture of our house/street! We live in suburbia also (we have a townhome on one side and a duplicate of our house on the other), however we back to a greenspace and our town/general area still has a lot of farming areas and vinyards. We really lucked out in having much fewer rules and regulations regarding keeping animals in city limits.
I don't have an iphone unfortunately, but I'll check out Mother Earth News again, it had totall slipped my mind! I woud prefer to have Khaki Campbells because I think they are a lot cuter, but I know Muscovys are quiter and supposedly have the most personality.
Steven and I are both quite young and would love to stay in our house for 15-30 years before deciding where/if we'd like to move-some of which will depend on if we decide to have a kid or not. I would love to have goats and cows some day and my biggest aspiration is to grow my own grapes to make wine. My dad and I made wine when I was younger with grapes from our area-it was DELICIOUS!
On a side note: I got a 15.2cuft upright freezer today from CL for .......$75! I am so ridiculously excited. It will let us keep the animal food out there and our food in our other two fridge/freezers
I figured you would understand my excitement.
Awesome score! We bought our 12 cuft new for like $150 I think, so that's a great deal. We have a standard fridge/tiny freezer combo where we keep regular food and frozen convenience foods like pizza, then our summer haul of frozen veggies and meat goes in the upright freezer. The two appliances are across our tiny kitchen from one another, it looks weird but hey it works.
My mom has both chickens and ducks, but they don't mix. She has a seperate coop for each. Although she will let them roam the yard at the same time and they do not bother each other.
Not sure where you are planning to get your chicks, but most hatcheries send them out right after they hatch, since they can go a day or two without eating. Whe she has ended up with a rooster, she usually is able to find them a home via craigslist. Some people don't have the same restrictions on roosters. The feed store sells chicks, but the best ones are usually picked right away. Your area might be different.
The ducks are new this year, they have been really good layers. Have you ever had duck eggs? They are really good and slightly less "eggy".
Backyard Chicken (google it) has a LOT of information.
My mom has both chickens and ducks, but they don't mix. She has a seperate coop for each. Although she will let them roam the yard at the same time and they do not bother each other.
Not sure where you are planning to get your chicks, but most hatcheries send them out right after they hatch, since they can go a day or two without eating. Whe she has ended up with a rooster, she usually is able to find them a home via craigslist. Some people don't have the same restrictions on roosters. The feed store sells chicks, but the best ones are usually picked right away. Your area might be different.
The ducks are new this year, they have been really good layers. Have you ever had duck eggs? They are really good and slightly less "eggy".
Backyard Chicken (google it) has a LOT of good information.