Ducks!

I have wanted ducks almost as long as we have had chickens (5 years now).  It would seem an easy solution to just get them and throw them in with the chickens, but after much research, I have just not been convinced.  Ducks can be really messy and water and chickens just don't mix well.  A wet run and/or coop can be toxic for chickens (coccidiosis and just unhealthy conditions in general).  I have just not been convinced it is good to run them together when you are unable to free range them.  In a closed coop/run area I just didn't see it being a good thing.

Fast forward to this past Monday and a friend of mine called me up and said they needed to rehome their niece's pet ducks that they had gotten for Easter.  I initially said no but I would call around to some of my friends.  It didn't take many minutes of thought and I messaged my husband about the ducks.  He said sure!  Uh oh!  I quickly tried to figure out how it could work and where (which pen) would I put them in. Meet Rosie (Pekin) and Allie (Rouen).  It's been an interesting ride and there are still lots of details to work out, but they seem to be doing just fine for now.  Pretty much everything is kind of temporary right now so the future will be interesting.

They are growing so fast.  It almost seems like they grow more feathers every day.

I set them up a separate pen within one of my chicken runs because they are still babies (about 4 weeks old now) and the chickens were picking on them,  My rooster in that run is young and a little skittish about the strange new roommates (LOL). They are growing so quickly that I moved them out of their tiny cage to an extra large dog kennel today for locking them up at night.  During the day they can run around their area and I have usually been able to let them run with the chickens supervised each day.  Boy, do they love their water!  It's so fun and comical to watch them.  Be watching for more updates.  Sure hope they are both females (duck eggs!).