The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: Le Recoignot on March 02, 2013, 01:33:23 pm

Title: Ducks and hens
Post by: Le Recoignot on March 02, 2013, 01:33:23 pm

My french farmer neighbour is proposing to give me some female ducks (apparantley they are no use for his intensive duck unit in which there are only males for meat production). Can these be kept close to my laying hens? or are they similar to turkeys who I believe can be easily infected by other poultry.

Title: Re: Ducks and hens
Post by: taz08 on March 02, 2013, 01:36:15 pm

i keep hens and ducks together ,,, no probs

Title: Re: Ducks and hens
Post by: HesterF on March 02, 2013, 05:30:08 pm

Mine are in together and the ducks are completely unaffected by the disease that's killing off the hens. The only thing is I think you'd be better off with a separate house for them and you need a run big enough to allow the hens to avoid the muddy area the ducks will create around their water (we have a 25m x 8m run and about a third of that is currently muddy - I'm waiting to see what will happen come spring and whether the grass will come back).

H

Title: Re: Ducks and hens
Post by: Shropshirelass on March 02, 2013, 07:57:36 pm

Mmm just have a nice area with quite a bit of water for the ducks, geese you can get away with them not having an area to swim but ducks do prefer it x

Title: Re: Ducks and hens
Post by: Jackie 2 on March 03, 2013, 06:51:22 am

If I remember right its the turkeys that have an inherent disease that can effect hens which is why they shouldnt be kept together but am willing to be corrected

Title: Re: Ducks and hens
Post by: taz08 on March 03, 2013, 09:12:07 am

its called blackhead

Title: Re: Ducks and hens
Post by: Jackie 2 on March 03, 2013, 05:50:56 pm

Thank you :)

Title: Re: Ducks and hens
Post by: HesterF on March 03, 2013, 11:21:36 pm

Although I think it's the other way around - chickens can carry Blackhead but Turkeys can die from it. I've no experience of it but was chatting to the people we got our Xmas turkey from about rearing our own and she was a vet and mentioned Blackhead. She said it can be carried by earthworms so it can actually move quite a long way from the chicken pen - it's not quite so simple as just having a different pen and assuming if they're on fresh ground, they'll be OK.

Sorry, bit of digression since it doesn't relate to ducks. Fortunately I don't think there are many diseases that can spread between chickens and ducks although some of the serious ones can  :-\.

H

Title: Re: Ducks and hens
Post by: benkt on March 04, 2013, 07:29:00 am

We've got one large mixed pen of Marans chickens and khaki Campbell ducks and both flocks have been perfectly happy and healthy - go for it!

Title: Re: Ducks and hens
Post by: Shropshirelass on March 04, 2013, 04:59:10 pm

We have turkeys, hens, geese & ducks all running together & I've been told by several people that blackhead only tends to affect young turkeys & as long as their wormed & in separate pens at night they should be ok x