Are you considering adding poultry to your yard or blossoming homestead? Perhaps to offset today’s wild egg prices and rising meat cost. We raise both chickens and ducks. So today’s post will discuss some pros and cons to the chickens or ducks debate! Which will be better to start with or will you be like us and add both to your homestead!
Eggs
The egg laying chicken breeds produce more eggs. Big surprise, but do not count out the ducks just yet. Once you start to dabble into some dual purpose chicken breeds or fancy chicken varieties the difference in eggs laid per year is closed. Combine that with factors of how long you keep them, egg laying consistence and the higher producing duck breeds… the competition is on!
Quanity
How long do you plan to keep your egg laying poultry? Chickens will lay well into the second year but the reduction in egg production is upwards of 50% in the 3rd year. A dual purpose egg chickens will lay 200+ eggs during their first productive year and you will not notice much of a decline that second season.
For our homestead we generally try to cull chickens late in the 2nd year to reduce some feed cost that are not going to be in production the following spring. This is not a hard and fast rule. Yesterday (in August) my wife and I culled 5 birds who traveled with us from our Virginia Homestead who were finishing their 3rd year.
We have had multiple ducks that have continued to lay well into their 5th year. Both traditional mallard breeds and our preferred muscovies.
Nebula, one of our muscovie ducks, is a matriarch of No More Stomach Acres. She has traveled from our initial Virginia Beach home to the rural Chesapeake location and now our North Carolina homestead. She is still laying and sitting on a nest currently working on her 5th year of hatching eggs for us!
Muscovy ducks will lay throughout the year but have high tendencies to hide the eggs and create clutches with super natural mothing instincts. They do tend to be on the lower end of egg production though, only hitting around 100 a year. You can read about why we chose this breed further on our Muscovy Duck post.
I have raised Golden 300 layer ducks (a specialized egg producing mallard breed) which produced eggs on par with our best chickens. The downside to this breed in our small backyard flock was noise and their production time was cut short.
The mallard breed ducks all stayed with our chickens and well contained in our electric poultry netting run. This reduced the egg hunt we experienced from our backyard city flock days. We have kept Runners, Swedish, Pekings, Rouen, Cyuga and Golden 300s, all of which have been great. I am looking to add the Blue Swedish or some Runners back in with our chicken flock since the Muscovies mostly free range limiting any cross breeding issues and increasing our duck egg production!
There are always laying rate anomalies. Just because a breed has a general rule for per year rates does not mean it will meet the mark or excel beyond! Here is a story from our earlier experience. A fancy silkie hen we once had laid as much as a Blue Swedish duck, both breeds are not known as high egg producers yet both laid consistently during the winter months. When our other birds stopped we were still eating fresh eggs daily. Their 100+ eggs each at a slower part of the year was well worth having some variety to the flock.
Size of eggs and taste!
If you have the opportunity to pick up some duck eggs and chicken eggs at a farmers market do so! Compare the flavors and see what you like. I recommend the farmers market or farmstead route because the quality and raising environment will likely be the same for those birds giving more accurate assessment removing many variables from possible store eggs. Not all birds are raised the same and the quality and taste of the egg will reflect that!
We have found roughly 3 chicken eggs equates to 2 duck eggs. Duck egg sandwiches are amazing with the larger and more rich yolk. I have done a lot of baking with duck eggs based off reviews of how much improved baked goods are. We have not personally found a noticeable change, perhaps my baking skills and recipes need to get more complex to notice the difference.
Chicken eggs are much easier to crack though you are likely to notice the shells of your chicken eggs will be thicker than those bought in stores due to better nutrition. No need for recipe conversion and generally you will have more available to share with family and friends!
Chickens or Ducks Egg Winner
Chicken for those starting out and eating a lot of eggs. I love the taste of duck eggs and encourage all to try them. Do buy some at your local farmers market and see the difference for yourself! The winning points land to the chickens for higher quantities and laying in the coops consistently. Though the occasional duck egg hunt is exciting!
Meat
Dual purpose birds are what we try to stick with. Though there are some bantam genes running around our homestead from some interesting show girl chickens I have struggled to catch. I will not address meat chickens here since that is a more specific purchase which does not tie into eggs or long term additions to the homestead.
A duck and dual purpose chicken carcass dresses out similar. 3-5 lbs of meat.
Chickens for Meat
For small scale batches when we only had 5 to 10 birds we skinned the birds for processing. Now with many more laying hens we operate the chicken plucker and scalder which is a much easier process.
Do not, I repeat do not try to cook an old laying hen similar to a chicken bought at the store! I smoked one and shredded it for a fancy spinach and chicken salad with some friends. That old girl was so tough to chew and it was embarrassing. They are called stewing hens for a reason. Cook them in the roaster or crock pot with lots of water. Shred the meat and freeze or can it! Make some delicious bone broth to use with the shredded chicken in the winter for soup!
Ducks for Meat
I honestly have not processed any muscovy duck females, only the male drakes. The biggest advantage in dual purpose a muscovy has is the mother instincts. We do not hatch, brood or raise muscovies. Our ducks do all the work naturally. We will collect eggs off nest before a mom goes broody to keep a supply of duck eggs. We allow clutches to be hatched out and raised to increase the number of ducks and then to process the drakes. Muscovy drakes dress out around 10lbs and have less fat than mallard breeds!
Once a year we will process adult muscovies drakes to replenish the freezer. The only muscovies we have purchased are drakes to place new blood into our gene pool with 5 generations of daughters and granddaughters on the homestead.
Mallard variety ducks are generally sold as straight run. So if you are seeking eggs like we originally were…be prepared to have no females. Our very first poultry purchased were 4 ducks after we had the Chicken vs Ducks debate years ago. After raising them all out we discovered the curly tail feater marking them all boys and subsequently had one bad day.
Duck meat is darker than chicken meat and may take getting use to for use in meals. This addition did have some learning curve for a meal plans since we did not grow up eating ducks. The flavor is rich though and we have kept ducks since the very beginning of the homestead journey because the meat and eggs are so good!
A major downside to having the ducks for meat is the time it takes to process. Where a chickens feathers will easily come off after being scalded…a duck has oil to repel the water. Those feathers want to fight to stay on! Skinning can quickly become a mess and only this past time with our new scald tank and plucker were we able to have some nice ducks with the skin on!
Chickens or Ducks Meat Winner
Another victory to the chickens. Though I love duck meat, the chickens are easier to process and much more universal in cooking meals.
Brooding
Chickens are easier! Especially for a beginner. Our first brooding was with pekins followed by a couple batches of chickens and more ducks. In all we have now brooded 100s of chickens and only a handful of ducks thanks to the muscovy ducks doing the mothering for us.
This is not an all inclusive brooding post. I still need to create one of those. The biggest difference between chickens or ducks in the brood box is water. Ducklings get water everywhere. We had to change out the bedding so many times. We tried many of the clever tricks to minimize spilling and collect anything away from the bedding. These systems of grates and containers were helpful… ducklings are still way more work than chickens when brooding.
Gardens
Chickens and ducks will both eat the bugs. They will both nibble on some of the vegetation. Some major differences fall into what effects they have on the plants.
We keep all birds away from the salad greens! Keep the poop off the stuff we eat is always a good policy.
Chickens scratch and they will dig around the plants to some degree causing roots to be exposed. We have had some plants topple in the wind and rain after some help from the chickens. For seedlings…the seedlings may be gone. I lost a few strawberry plants to chickens this year.
Ducks do not scratch like Chickens so they have no effect on the grown plants. While your plants are young seedlings those giant webbed feet will find their way right on top smashing them into the dirt. Allow the birds in mid season if at all. Or if you are like us, make an attempt to keep the birds out initially while the plants get established but the garden may be a too big to fence and the birds enjoy the bugs in the fresh turned dirt!
Our gardens over the years have benefited from having the chickens and ducks adjacent to the garden. Any weed trimmings or veggies that the bugs have beat us to go right over the fence and to the birds. The insect population in the garden is greatly reduced just by having the birds nearby. After a season with no poultry following some animal control issues in the city our garden and pear tree crops were devastated! The minor losses due to either type of poultry trampeling or tearing up the garden were much less than a season of bugs with little to no mitigation.
My neighbor has identified a particular Muscovy Drake who leads his group of ducks into our gardens and eats the tomatoes and peppers. This is a first, and has not been the norm in our years of keeping muscovies.
Chickens or Ducks Garden Winner
Ducks make it onto the score board! In overall plant and garden losses with our homestead the worst animals have been our goats. Followed pretty far behind are the chickens. Outside of a couple nibbled tomatoes this year the ducks have almost constantly been in our gardens and helped.
Yard, range, and runs
We discussed in more detail the effects of poultry on our backyard homestead in this post. I will recap little but discuss the differences here.
Chickens scratch! Big news alert right there. So eventually they will work the grass down around your coop and any run depending on the size of the area.
Duck poop is super watery, so if you have any type of bedding material in the run or coop, ducks will quickly saturate it. Add in a good rainfall and you can have a less than plesant smell to deal with. We have advice having lived the challenge and lessons the hard way in our post on poop management.
This topic is a tie! Both will quickly make a mess of a small run or yard.
Noise
Roosters…check if you can locally have them? A rooster does not limit its crowing to sunrise. Turns out they do it about whenever they feel like it, 3am, why not! Noon, go for it! 9pm dont try to go to bed early!
I will not completely discredit the rooster crow, it can be great when alerting the hens to predators in the area and keeping the flock unified. The roosters are needed if you intend to hatch any eggs. A big point though is the hens will lay eggs without a rooster in the flock. The eggs just will not be fertalized and able to be hatched.
Hens will get talkative when they lay their eggs. This is the most common time to hear a hen clucking away and making noise. Other times may be distress, food, and water but I have found the most consistent is letting everyone know her egg has been laid for the day.
Mallard breeds of ducks. Though they are called mallard breeds the general homestead and farm breeds are larger and not great at flying. These ducks have the familiar duck quack which multiples in volume when they get to chatting with each other. Some neighbors will enjoy the uniqueness in sound while others may file a complaint. The checking and understanding of local ordinances is a must as most cities have rules allowing chickens inside the city limits while ducks may still be against the rules. Sometimes a gesture of eggs could go far in finding a common path.
Chickens or Ducks Noise Winner
Muscovy ducks absolutely win this debate. If your rules are a bit more strict a duck that makes little to no sound could be perfect as we wrote about here. This breed has the amazing quality of not quacking. All other Ducks and chicken noise levels will vary by breed. Some are more chatty than others.
Foraging
This little skill in searching out their own food will relate to cost of eggs and meat later. First the birds need to have access to forage the ground for this to actually apply. How much will they eat the bugs and grasses?
Mallard breeds of ducks are capable foragers. They will eat some grasses though not as much as geese and Muscovy Ducks. Given free range I have had a Pekin living completely wild with a couple muscovies needing no support.
Muscovies do not need us. Plan and simple they still hold the wild traits and do not require any help.
Production chicken breeds, whether for meat or eggs are the worst at foraging. The commercial traits these breeds have been selectively breed for has limited the foraging skills left in the breeds.
Dual purpose birds have a decent balance of egg production, putting on weight for meat, and being able to supplement their feeding with finding forage. Our current batch of chicks are generally out foraging for food long before they finish the food available to them in the feeders. This can be to a determent to our garden at times but the traits are desirable in our model and my feed budget appreciates the determination of these little birds.
Chickens or Ducks Foraging Winner
Muscovy ducks take the victory in this set as they can fly off and be completely wild with no assistance from humans. They eat more grasses than the mallard breeds and think mosquitos are the best source of proteins which really puts them in 1st place for us.
Chickens or Ducks!
Our best balance of the criteria for a beginner is the chicken. This post shows a tie overall but providing the top factors in picking should be eggs and meat the chicken is the victor.
This answer may be different for you based on your space, desires, and what is available locally or via mail. What I quickly found out was though we started with a couple breeds our flock quickly became very diverse and there was benefit to the changes. Pick the one you are most interested in and fits your needs, don’t be afraid to jump in and start raising poultry! Chickens or ducks, I vote try both!