Chickens or Ducks.

Hi

If you had the choice, which would you keep?

I enjoy free range eggs, spoilt for choice where I am now, honesty boxes all over the place.

I am going to have one or the other, but leaning towards ducks, comical things and ace at ridding the garden of slugs and snails.

I am not keen on slug pellets etc.

I don't know much about small scale chicken keeping but I know some of you do.

Any views?

Re: Chickens or Ducks.

Have you checked the local by-laws, Swimmy? A lot of councils don't allow keeping live stock - and some of your new neighbours might not appreciate the noise involved. Plus you may attract foxes. Lots to think about - but it could be good!

Re: Chickens or Ducks.

I have both Swim

A dozen Hens and a pair of ducks

Ducks are dirty buggers, you need a separate pool for them and an area thet can be hosed down cos believe me they poop for England. However they don't do a lot of damage to your lawns as they have webbed feet so cant scratch


Chooks are a tiny bit cleaner, they don't beed a pool, but they do need a dust bath and shade. Their coops need to be big enough that they can perch without killing each other and needs cleaning regularly. Those little tiny houses for sale aren't worth the money. We have a purpose built shed, with different height perches cos chickens have a hierarchy

They will ruin the lawn in days

We have a penned off area for them that we cover with scalpings - the bark of trees from the saw mill..It needs replacing every month - costs £8. We let them out on the garden for an hour in the evenings to kill the bugs

For your sized garden 5 hens, if you get a good house ( think shed) would be plenty. that would give you plenty of eggs plus some to sell. We sell at £1.20 half dozen as ours have plenty of roaming space ( they don't free range but they dander around the field behind us ) so I sell them as happy hens eggs, and what we sell just about buys their feed and bedding during the year

One thing you need to understand and be prepared for, is hens only have a short laying life. Out of the dozen we have at the moment , 5 are free loaders. We don't have space to bring any others in but these 5 cost us in food and lodgings.

Its a sharp learning curve when you have more hens then space


With the ducks, well this is deep country so the eggs are sought after. right now our drake has a broken bone in his legs and has cost us a bit at the vets. If he has to be destroyed we need to rehome the duck so right now we are having to catch the wee sod and get painkiller and antibiotics down his beak 3 times a day

But with all that, I love the wee beggars and they are so much fun as pets

Re: Chickens or Ducks.

Most only don't allow the keeping of roosters within town boundaries

Theres a bylaw from WW2 that allows the keeping of hens in gardens which most councils haven't repealed

Re: Chickens or Ducks.

Hi

There may well be some obscure by law, but if there is then nobody takes any notice, a lot of people do keep poultry in their gardens in the part of town I am moving to.

I would never keep a cockerel in any event, noisy things.

A trio of either chickens or ducks would suffice for me.

If it is ducks, one would be a drake, it is the ducks which are the noisy ones.

I would never keep call ducks either.

The estate was built post war, with large gardens to encourage grow your own.

Re: Chickens or Ducks.

Good advice that Missy, especially about the mess ducks make. All their poo's are watery and squirt everywhere, don't they.

They also need a pond which can be kept clean easily as they will dirty it very quickly. Their eyes can get sore and infected if they can't get their heads under water.

Some breeds will also fly, others won't, so this needs to be considered too.

Some chickens will easily flutter over a low fence too.

Just one more thing, someone needs to always be there at dusk to shut them in a fox proof house, and let them out again in the morning, as the first night you forget- they'll be taken!

Some properties have it written in the deeds about keeping poultry.
Some state quite clearly whether it is allowed or not.

Personally, I would not keep one female for one male. The males 'tread' the females continually and can be a real nuisance to one female. Similar to Ram/Ewe ratios.
I have seen over amorous drakes drown females when mating on water!

This might be helpful.

https://poultrykeeper.com/keeping-du...ke-duck-ratio/


P.S. Swim, if you ask a breeder for a 'Trio' of birds, he will assume you mean a cock and two hens, or drake and two ducks.
That is usually what a trio means in the poultry world.
I kept and bred them for nearly 40 years.

Re: Chickens or Ducks.

Hi

They are aren't they?

A pool is no problem for me, I have a lot of waste water from my RO System which will simply be pumped down and the pool drained automatically every day.

If I have ducks, they will be Indian Runners, these need very little water.

Re: Chickens or Ducks.

Never had either, but I do like their eggs.

But Chickens and Ducks you will get Rats and Foxes.

Re: Chickens or Ducks.

Hi

There are more rats around the takeaways than there are in a well kept poultry house.

The foxes I can deal with, I already have an electric fence.

I have a ruck of stuff from when I ran the Ex's mother's small farm.

I need to clear that out now, just take what I want and put the rest in Auction.

Re: Chickens or Ducks.

You probable know this already, Swimmy, but for anyone else who may be thinking of electric fences there are a few rules to think about:-

https://blog.avsfencing.co.uk/what-a...ctric-fencing/