Can Ducks and Chickens Share a Smallholding?

Plenty of British smallholders end up with both, usually because someone was offered a trio of Khaki Campbells at the wrong moment. The good news is that ducks and chickens can run on the same ground quite happily, provided you accept from the outset that they are not the same animal with a different beak. Ducks are waterfowl: they must be able to submerge their whole bill to clear their nares, they cannot groom properly without water, they sleep on the floor rather than perching, and they will convert any patch of grass into a bog with remarkable speed. Chickens roost, dust bathe, and loathe having wet feet.

Those differences are all manageable. The one combination worth avoiding is a drake running with hens. A drake will attempt to mate with anything roughly duck-shaped, and his weight and anatomy can tear a hen's back badly enough to kill her. If you keep chickens, either keep drakes out of the mixed flock or run the drakes in a separate pen with their own ducks.

Housing: Separate Beds, Shared Ground

Give each species its own house even when the run is shared. A chicken coop needs perches and nest boxes; a duck ark needs floor space, deep dry litter and a low doorway, because ducks walk in rather than fly up. They will happily lay on the floor in a corner, so nest boxes are optional.

• Site houses facing away from prevailing wind and rain, with the duck house on the lowest, fastest-draining ground you have.
• Use deep, absorbent bedding — chopped straw, hemp or large wood shavings — and muck out the duck house more often than you think necessary. Ducks produce a great deal of damp.
• Ventilate at high level but never draught at floor level; damp, stuffy air is the enemy of both species.
• Fox-proof properly: weldmesh rather than chicken wire, buried skirts or paved aprons, and sliding bolts with a spring or padlock. A fox will take ducks in broad daylight.

Water Management: The Single Biggest Headache

Everything else in mixed keeping flows from water. Ducks need a container deep enough to plunge their entire head into — roughly 15 centimetres minimum — which they will then splash everywhere. Chickens must never be expected to drink from that container, as shared, fouled water is a direct disease route.

Provide separate drinkers: nipple drinkers or a raised plastic drinker on a stand for the chickens, positioned well away from the duck bath. For the ducks, a heavy trug or small paddling pool sunk into gravel on the downhill side of the run works well, so it can be tipped and refilled daily or every second day. Moving water stays cleaner than standing water, and a drain or soakaway saves endless wheelbarrow work.

Ducklings are a different matter. Until they are fully feathered they chill and drown easily, so give them shallow dishes with pebbles or marbles and no open water beyond a few centimetres.

Feeding Ducks and Chickens Together

Chickens do well on layers' pellets with mixed corn as a scratch feed, plus insoluble grit and oyster shell on free offer. Ducks will eat much the same, but their needs differ in two important ways.

• Niacin. Ducklings need far more of it than chicks, and ordinary chick crumbs are too low. Use a waterfowl starter, or add brewer's yeast to the ration, or you will see leg weakness within a fortnight.
• Feed form. Offer pellets rather than mash. Ducks scoop and slop; wet mash ferments within hours and can make them ill.
• Protein and calcium. Laying ducks want a similar ration to laying hens, but drakes and non-laying ducks should not be on high-calcium layers' pellets indefinitely.
• Separate troughs. Ducks scoop, chickens flick. Two feeding stations, spaced apart, stops the bolder birds monopolising the food.

Never feed mouldy or musty grain to ducks. They are unusually susceptible, and what would give a hen a mild off day can kill a duck.

Health, Hygiene and the Mud Question

Wet, poached ground is where problems begin. Chickens on sodden litter pick up respiratory infections, coccidiosis and bumblefoot; ducks lose the waterproofing in their feathers and develop foot and fungal trouble. The practical answer is hard standing: paving, concrete or a deep layer of 20mm woodchip around feeders, drinkers and house doors, with the rest of the run rotated onto fresh grass as often as you can manage. Roof part of the run if you can — it transforms a British winter.

Keep new birds separate for three to four weeks before mixing, treat housing for red mite regularly, and remember that when a housing order for avian influenza is in force it applies to your ducks as well as your hens.

Making a Mixed Flock Work Day to Day

Start with a see-but-don't-touch period through mesh for a fortnight, then mix young birds into plenty of space with multiple feeders and drinkers. Chickens can bully ducks, particularly the gentler breeds, and will peck at eyes given the chance, so watch the first week closely. Allow generously: two square metres of run per bird is a sensible floor, and more is always better.

Settle into a routine — out at first light, water checked and refreshed, feed given, birds counted; shut in at dusk with another count and a glance at the bedding. Done that way, a mixed flock earns its keep twice over. Ducks hoover up slugs and snails by the bucketful, chickens scratch out pests and turn the compost, and both leave you manure for the vegetable beds.