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I read this - the text in blue -on the duck pond and wondered if you all agree? I have over 2 dozen musovies and would like to get a few chooks but the olny problem is I don't have the room for another run so the chooks would have to live with the ducks. I would love to hear how you guys keep them

Many folks keep their ducks in the same yard as their chooks, but this is definitely not a good idea. Ducks are somewhat messy creatures that love making soil into mud and splashing water around their environment. Chickens on the other hand, do not like wet ground, such conditions quickly causing diseases in chooks and intestinal worm build-up. Roosters and bigger hens can totally intimidate lesser aggressive ducks and drakes can sometimes be a little too amorous with the hens too. So keeping ducks and chooks together is not the way to go.
http://www.users.on.net/~greggles/duckpond/dp02.html

Thanks for reading

a fair while ago , um 3 or so years , i did run chooks n ducks in same enclosure even same large coop sure didn't take me long to re house n yard them seperately , best thing i ever done less bullying cleaner boots not to mention calmer poultry oh an the ducks loved splashing round in the wallows with the free range piglets . cheers n beers gary

So you had no trouble with the ducks mixing with the pigs? My duck run is very large and its not really that muddy even after big rain but it is over 400sqft so they are not pooping in the same place all the time.

I've kept ducks and chooks together for a couple of years and haven't had a problem. But they do free range all day. They come back to their shed for food and at night and although I haven't seen what the pen would look like if they were all in it permanently I can begin to guess how messy it would be!

At night the chooks are on their perches and the ducks are on ground level so room is no problem and feed wise they all eat the same thing so thats fine there. I no longer leave water inside the shed at night because they never seem to sleep and the water and pen floor were a mess by morning. They'll pick up dirt and moosh it through water no matter what and with water going everywhere the ground can become hard and compacted (or muddy and full of holes) depending on the substrate.

I have moved to sand in the shed and outside it where they all mill around and its the best thing I've done. Great drainage and easy to keep clean and looking good. Water is in small containers in the pen and their swimming tubs are out in the yard where its easier to tip them on the garden. They'll make a sparkling clean pool dirty in five minutes of course! The chooks will drink dirty water even if you've provided them with clean so in the pen you have to be vigilant to keep refreshing water.

If you can keep your pen from becoming muddy I doubt you'd have a disease problem. A dirty pen would be bad for any poultry whether its ducks or chooks. Personally I wouldn't be keep them with adult pigs because I think too much damage could potentially occur, but as Gary said he had no problem with piglets in a free range situation. At least the ducks could get away if necessary.

Regarding bullying I don't have a problem because of the space I have but I can definitely see the drake could be potentially aggressive to the hens. Depending on his hormanal surges he's either happy to have them standing beside him, or he's chasing them with head down. The ducks and chooks often hang together especially when preening but mostly keep apart and I've noticed the ducks don't stand up for themselves against the chooks.

Good luck with giving it a go

Hi All

Many years ago we had chooks and ducks together, free ranging with plenty of space. The Muscovy Drake was not at all fussy be it a duck or a chook if he could catch it, he would mate with it. So we seperated the chooks from the ducks.

Regards

Ian

Hello!

Isn't it interesting all the different views!

We have had Muscovies and chooks together right from the word go, and I've never had a serious problem with them.

This however, may be due to the fact that nearly all of our birds have grown up from young with each other, and so have been used to each other from the word go.

Thinking back, we did get a pair of drakes that were real bullies, so we got rid of them, but other drakes we bought were fine once they established the pecking order.

Heh, we had a meat chook which turned out to be a rooster, so we kept him alive, and he was the king of the pen... he had all the birds cowed, including the 5 geese which are living in the pen too... everything got out of his way when he walked, except for us humans, and then, he only JUST moved out of our way!

They have a fairly good size run (probably about a large backyard worth of acerage penned off), and while they do tend to keep themselves to themselves, they have no problem mingling and eating/drinking together.

Regards to the water, I fill it up every day, and change it every other. It does get very dirty very quickly!

Hope this helps!

I have Island reds in with my campbells and runners with no trouble in the house. Admiringly I let them out on the weekend but week days they all stay in and my house stays fairly mud free except on the heaviest down pours but it soon dries out.

for all the advice I think I will give it a try with say 6 hens and see how they get on before getting more

I don't think you will have anything to worry about but it is a good idea to only start with a few

As long as your pen is big enough then yes you can mix but I found even with a 8 x12 meter pen it still turned to bog in no time