Ducks and Chickens....

[MW1LCR]

Hello all,

We have 10 Chickens (5 Warrens, 5 Black Rocks) and 5 Ducks (4Ducks and a Drake).

The Chickens go in to their hen house around dusk every evening, and although young we are getting 3-4 eggs a day. The Chickens are cooland provide much entertainment to our 2 and bit year old son and a 2 year old Springer Spaniel (Chuck TV)...however our Ducks !

They want to wander around all night in and out the pond etc etc. Does anyone know if Ducks are similar to Chickens in as much as they'll get themselves in the Duck house at night ?

I am away from home all week, and the other half is chasing ducks around in the dark trying to round them up.....with a big Fishing net !

All help appreciated.!!!

By the way, I understand that if you are selling Eggs (Chickens and Ducks) at the Farm gate there is no legislative controls......but I may be wrong !

Thanks

Adrian

[ina]

I worked for a market garden once where we also kept all sorts of poultry. The ducks were fed in their pen at night - I don't know whether they would otherwise have gone in! But they were very eager for their feed; so they always turned up when it was time. Sometimes quite funny; there I was, milking a goat, surrounded by 7 Indian runners, all clamouring for their dinner...

They were then left in their pen until mid morning, so that all the eggs were laid in one place, too.

[cupcake]

no the ducks wont go to bed on their own but they are easily trained if you get them into a routine. When you want them to go to bed, take a treat for them and round them up into their house with the treat as a bribe. If you do it the same every night they will soon learn the routine.
If you cant be home every night you need to get them a secure run for when youre not around.
Once the fox knows youve got ducks loose he'll soon make himself known.

[theabsinthefairy]

Our ducks and geese put themselves to bed along with the chickens - Ducks to the left in nesting boxes and chickens to the right on perches, geese on the floor in the middle. We don't feed them to get them to come in, but as they all live together throughout the day and free range, they are all accustomed to coming in together at night.


Try using a rattley shakey pan with feed in for the ducks to get them used to the sound for food - and then use that to encourage them to gather together to be shut in at night, with a bit of food as positive reinforcement.
Once you get the drake to understand he will then round up his girls to make sure that they are all together in the evening too.

[Millymollymandy]

My ducks come running when it is time to put the chooks to bed for one simple reason - FOOD!!!

[farmerdrea]

My daughter hand-reared ducklings, chicks and a turkey poult together this summer, and it was the chicks that trained the ducklings and turkey to go into a house at night, because the ducklings thing they're chickens! We've never had such well-behaved ducks before, all of them marching into the little house every night and sleeping in a pile. It's very amusing, though they make rather a mess on the chicks as you might imagine. The turkey is looking the worse for it, as he's pure white, but has become a bit dun-coloured over time, poor fellow.

We had a trio of adult ducks on our previous farm, and we had to train them to get in at night for safety's sake, as we had stoats, ferrets, raccoons, skunks, foxes, cougars, bears, bobcats and coyotes to worry about there. Here we have to worry about the hedgehog infestation that the summer drought has brought (we've caught and dealt to 15 in 3 weeks! They really make a mess of young ducks and chooks.).

Andrea
NZ