askchapo

they are extremely dirty so if you are providing enough water for them to swim in (which makes them happier), you will want it to be flowing or pumped water as otherwise it will be impossible to keep clean. this is the biggest hassle with keeping ducks from what I've heard, they are pretty chill birds. i don't know much about feeding them etc. just picked up this advice from when my ex's parents kept them

I'd be extremely careful doing this right now with bird flu, the first h5n1 death was linked to a backyard flock of birds. I've had multiple neighbors with backyard chickens who lost them to bird flu in the last few years. I've moved my small flock of chickens/ducks/guineafowl inside full time, and will not be replacing any birds lost in the future until I have none remaining.

I think you need a really long thin stick. That's all I know

Ducks are much much much worse than chickens. They are so incredibly dirty and will ruin their water in a matter of minutes. Unless you have a very large body of water I would avoid ducks. Unless it's like one duck, maybe.

no but I wish I did

No, only Quayle. I do know that ducks are dirty af and make a decent amount of noise. Muscovy ducks are a quieter in their vocalizations than eurasian ducks. Maybe that's useful to you.

In addition to the messiness and water access requirement, you need to be prepared to protect their little feetsies. The webbing on their feet will be injured by any rough surface (concrete, rocks, rubble). You have to either keep them away from any rough urban-type surfaces or put little boots on their little feet.

Seems like there are a lot of takes on here already, so I'll try to just add on. Main Considerations- space(LxWxH, distance from your house); local predators(what kind of protection do they need esp. at night); climate/weather(temps, precipitation); budget(enclosure + feed).

Ducks are happy and cute little monsters, and people generally like them as companions more than chickens. People generally don't like ducks cause they/their habitat can smell. Ducks love water(will touch on more) and they poop a lot, this make for a smelly habitat if not kept clean or kept in the right conditions. They need to have access to drinking water at all times but esp. with meals(important for their digestion and health). Ducks are both individuals and members of a community so they'll need a flock, keeping less than 3 birds seems cruel to me for their social health and always keep extra birds(minimal extra resources to provide for them, better for their collective health and enrichment, expect predation). If raising from hatchling expect a 10-15% mortality rate before adulthood, after adulthood it'll be because something gets into their coop at night and this will happen no matter how hard you work to prevent it. Ducks also need daily access to baths with clean water- a kiddy pool can work fine for this. People generally only get female ducks and chickens, esp. in urban/suburban environments, those birds produce eggs, and are better behaved and generally make less noise) Hope that help, open to slowly responding to questions!

I've also wanted ducks but have abstained for many of the reasons others have already posted.

If your priority is cuteness, have you looked into Japanese silkie chickens?

They're a common show breed that look like Dr Seuss creatures. Since they're popular with that crowd, you can often find breeders giving away excess birds that aren't up to the ridiculously high showing standards (i.e., a toenail may be too long or the coloring is less than symmetrical). They're small, social, and my experience with them is they have playful personalities and are all-around friendly little goofs.

We had ducks when I was a kid. Not a super urban area technically as we had a decent size backyard.

1. Males willremoved females who occasionally die in the process
2. My parents would clip wings to avoid them flying away. They would be "free range" during the day and in their cage at night, for protection from raccoons
3. They get upset if you leave them no eggs to roost, so my mom would boil the eggs and mark them with sharpie, then return them so they could roost. My sister always wanted ducklings and once went out and marked the unboiled eggs with sharpie so they could hatch.
4. We just kept them for fun but we would give extra eggs (that didn't get boiled and returned) to our neighbor who was allergic to chicken eggs.

Not really great advice at all but just what I remember. Point #1 is what I remember the most. At one point, we had 3 females and one male, named Wild. He ended upremoved and killing his harem one by one. After the last female had been killed, we just gave Wild the death sentence by leaving him out at night for the raccoons and that was the end of our duck raising adventures.

Reckon it’s about to get very expensive.