discussion Keeping chickens and / or ducks

[AlanG]

Just wondering if anyone on here (in the UK) keeps chickens or duck....or both.

I'm looking into keeping a few birds for eggs and meat. I'm leaning towards ducks (Moscovy) as they produce lovely eggs and a really good dress out weight for meat.

 

[Peej]

I farm chickens. About 178,000 if 'em. All produced for meat. Probably a bit larger scale than you want really. :upside:

 

[Jim R]

Hi Alan
Never kept ducks but when we lived in Scotland we had a few assorted chickens, kept for eggs. Great fun, enough eggs to keep close neighbours happy and your own eggs seem to taste better. Fascinated the dogs, both collie crosses. One tried to round them up instinctively whereas the other one was frightened of them :thinking:
Jim

 

[stillp]

I had a couple of ducks once. One was found one morning with its neck buried in the ground - a rat (or something) had tunnelled under the enclosure, (wire mesh about 8 inched in the ground) and started to pull the duck down the tunnel, but of course it got stuck. Head and neck were eaten away. We moved the other one to my father in law's, where he had wire about 2 feet in the ground, and later enjoyed it for Xmas dinner.
Pete

ps if you have kids, don't tell them when they're eating their 'pet' duck...