Ducks or Chickens

[frias]

from all the books I have read it was always said that Chickens can be trained and make ideal pets etc…

Not sure you can train chickens, they train YOU! I think most of us on here are chicken slaves. I agree, they do make great pets though.

[OverWyreGrower]

Ducks are much worse than hens!! I have 6 ducks and 10 hens and the chickens are better behaved and cleaner than the ducks by miles!!

[Bramble-Poultry]

my mother has chickens and ducks. Within a few days of getting the ducks they had turned the area of garden into a recreation of the Somme, whereas the chickens had scratched it to bare earth, but it wasnt strewn with manure and water. So all in all, i would go chickens first, ducks if you have a large large garden and one or two ducks.......

[BUFFS]

i am glad i found this thread,as i was thinking of getting a few ducks,to clear the veg garden of slugs/snails.i can definitely do without the mess they seem to generate,i think we will get two or three more bluebelles sometime in the spring,they survived temperatures down to -13 over the new year and kept laying.they take a while to settle in,but then they really prosper,and they are really docile,and have now outgrown our isa browns and blackrocks,anyway thank you all for the onfo on the ducks,saved me a lot of earache.

[Hinksy]

Thanks for all the replies, we decided to stick with the first plan and go with the Chickens and from what everyone has said it seems the better choice anyway..... Roll on spring for the Chickens to Land!

[Birdie Wife]

I'm firmly in the chicken camp, having kept both.
Ducks poo more, turn any bit of wet, just heavy rain wet, ground into a mudbath, and lay wherever they are when they think of it. And they REALLY need some form of water, even if its only a shallow bowl, but you'll need to clean it out every other day at least as they fill it with poo and mud and it stinks. The only really intelligent ones I've met are Muscovies..and theyre more goose than duck..very clever. Ducks are only better layers because they lay further into old age, a good hybrid hen will lay better than most ducks on a day to day basis in my experience.
Chickens may be more stupid (although I've not seen any signs of it with mine) and they can decimate a veg patch but they do lay in a nest box, and wont smell unless the coop is dirty. They can be agressive with each other, but its seems only the cockerals who get agressive with people. Oh and feathery footed breeds dont seem to scrat the ground up as much. Out of mine the friendliest are the Orpington x silky and the cream legbars.

I totally agree with all of this - I've kept chickens longer than I have ducks, but the first ducks I got were indian runners (I had herad they lay more eggs over the winter than chickens - well, mine didn't - though maybe I should have got a utility strain) and they were so highly strung, they freaked out the first time I let them out of the house and they were off down the road. Took me ages to herd them back in. I now have muscovies and they are a pleasure, though they do make a mess of the water. All ducks poo is very liquid and much more smelly than chickens.

Get chickens!!!

A hybrid hen that's bred for free range is your best bet for beginners, Lohmann brown/ISA/Warren/Bluebell/white star/black rock etc etc - there's lots to choose from.

[Hilary B]

The heavy laying ducks are Khaki Campbells. Runners are good, but not THAT good! Campbells eat a lot more food than chooks....