Raising Baby Chicks and Ducks

Posted by The Survival Center on 5th Jun 2017

Greetings,

We recently filmed a short video on starting to raise baby chicks and ducks. If you haven't seen it yet, click on the video.

They are so cute and fun to watch.

They are now 1 ½ months old.

We had to separate the ducklings from the chicks, since the chicks kept bothering and pecking at the ducklings.

(Our adult ducks and chickens seem to get along just fine.)

They outgrew the water trough you see in the video pretty quickly. It was only used to keep them confined until they were a bit bigger, so they could not squeeze through the fence and get stuck, which divides the building into two pens.

When you compare their size, the ducks are now more than double the size of the chicks and we got them a week later.

Now we know why they raise so many ducks in China. They grow really fast.

The chicken breeds we chose, Buff Orpington, Rhode Island Reds and Black Sexlink, are good egg layers. Chicken breeds for meat will grow faster than those.

It is fun to watch them grow and soon they will be laying wonderful eggs.

Even in most cities, raising chickens and ducks is possible. Check with your local ordinances. There are probably restrictions on how many you can raise.

But If you raise them yourself, you can provide them the best environment and housing according to your specs and can have eggs from happy chickens instead of from animals who live in crowded and enclosed environments.