Duck housing, coops, and runs often resemble chicken coops or rabbit hutches without the stilt style legs. While ducks can often live harmoniously with chickens in the same coop and run (in my personal experience) some keeps prefer to create a duck house – coop and run designed specifically to house only the water loving poultry birds.
A duck house can be a simple structure that resembles a dog house. In… [Read More]
Incubating duck eggs in an incubator is a bit more complicated than hatching chicken eggs the same way. Most incubators are designed to be used for both types of eggs. But, although it is fairly commonplace on homesteads, attempting to hatch both chicken and duck eggs at the same time is often problematic.
While some duck breeds both lay and sit their eggs well, many do not. The Pekin breed, for… [Read More]
Ducks are quite entertaining little creatures. They each have their own definite personalities and flock demeanor. Being able to interpret duck behavior will allow you to better understand why they do what they do. It will also enhance your husbandry skills to offer better care – and perhaps even get more delicious eggs in the process.
Both domestic egg and meat duck breeds as well as their wild peers share the… [Read More]
Feeding ducks the right feed at the right time in proper amounts is crucial to their overall health and egg production capacity. While commercial feed may be at the base of the diet of most backyard duck flocks, many homesteaders also diligently try to introduce as much of a natural diet as possible into the bellies of their egg producing poultry birds. In this article we are going to tell you everything you need to… [Read More]
You have finally done your research on why you should have ducks, but now need help sexing them. Sexing ducks or even young ducklings is possible using a variety of simple to difficult techniques. Depending upon the method you choose and your skill set, sexing of chickens can occur when they are merely days old.
Once you discover what physical and audio cues to look for when staring at a batch… [Read More]