Raising Ducks in Your Kitchen

These are the ducks. From left to right, we have George Washington Quackers, Skeletor Stinkor Washington Boyette, and Ducky Strawberry Shortcake Washington Boyette.

Last year for Lent, we raised chickens in a coop in our kitchen. Our kitchen is quite long, so we were able to separate them from the food areas and tried to keep it as hygienic as possible. The chickens stank, though, and made noise into the night as well as had floating feathers. We took them to a chicken farm where they were going to be raised to live into long life. Nugget was promptly stolen by a hawk but word on the street is that Birdie still is there.

This year we decided on ducks. It would be easier, we thought, to let them go in a local duck pond than search for a farm for them to live at. We did some research and adopted three baby ducks from a local feed store.

The ducks were quieter and there weren't any feathers flying around like the chickens. They did somehow manage to poop outside of the coop while they were in it. They would line their rears up to holes in the wire and poop on the floor. This was frustrating as was the wood shavings that got all over our house.

On the plus side, they liked to play in a kiddie pool in the backyard and would clean off their shedding feathers that way. They slept all night and put up with whatever position they were held in.

Two weekends ago we released them at the local pond. They were about two months old, nearly full-grown and very healthy. Ducky did have an incident with our dog Wesley, but was healed minus a bald spot. I had been feeding them high-protein duck food and leaving them outside during the day as much as possible to acclimate them to the outdoors.

They jumped right into the pond. The next day we went back and found only Skeletor. He had paired off with a mallard duck and denied knowing us. The other two have yet to be seen.

So we learned several lessons through this experience.

1. No matter what the species, birds in your kitchen are generally not a good idea.

2. Pond ducks are much different that ducks raised indoors.

3. Duck poop and chicken poop stink about the same.

4. We don't want to be urban or rural farmers.

Please, dear reader, learn from our experience.