- Good day. I'm Mark from Self Sufficient Me, and in this video, I'm going
to give you my 10 reasons why I've had enough of keeping ducks. Let's get into it. (calming piano music) Ready? Follow me. How'd you get down there so quick? All right, we'll go down,
and we'll collect our ducks, and I'll give you a little
bit of a background story. (ducks quacking) Okay. I've got two Appleyards there. That's the original pair. Then I've got their daughter with her two daughters
in that quail pen there. I separated them out, because, well, they were
in that little coop there and it wasn't big enough for
her and the two baby ones. So I open this coop up through the day, and those ducklings would be gone. A hawk or something would
get them, or a snake. So that was the reason
why I separated them. I think I'll put the three
of them in this big cage, and the ducklings in that little one. Simply put, I have had
enough of keeping ducks. I've kept ducks now for over
10 years and it has been good. It's been a great experience, but now it's time to get rid of them. So we might as well just
get into our top 10 reasons. And the first one is you can hear, well, they've quietened down now, just because I'm going to say this, but I'm talking loud
because the Blooming ducks, they're loud. - [Mark] Now, we might
well live on acreage that backs onto bush land and say the noise doesn't
really affect neighbors, or anything like that,
but it kind of affects me. And it really does, I don't know, over time, take away from the tranquility and the peacefulness of
just the chickens down here. Hens clucking, or hens
getting a little bit upset here and there, or when
they're laying an egg can be a little bit noisy. But I still prefer that than the type of honking from these ducks. So noisy was the first reason. I won't elaborate anymore on that, because you probably hear
them in the background. Not putting themselves to
bed was the other issue. I like that I got my electric door. When it was working, it was pretty good. Raise itself up, let the hens out, And when it becomes dark or before dark the hens put themselves to bed. Nice and tidy, nice and easy.
Don't have to worry about it. However, ducks don't necessarily do that. They sometimes put themselves to bed and they'll go back into the coop. But often I'd come down
and they were still outside and they never met the timer on the door. And we have to have
our poultry locked away at night because you
have huge pythons here. All different types of snakes, in fact. And other animals like
owls, and hawks, and dingos, and dogs, and foxes, even big lizards. And the third reason, before I go and get them
and put them in the cages, is messy. Ducks are a lot
messier than chickens. All they do is spit, and take mud and feed
and put it in the water. And when you go to clean that out, which you really have to clean out daily, it's just one stinky awful mess. And I'll give you just one last reason. The fourth one is because, it sort of goes together with the messy, and ducks are stinky, especially
the male ones, the drakes. They tend to be the stinkiest of all. I just don't think they
look after themselves as much as the females do. But regardless, they all stink. And where they do their poops, it's not like a chicken poop
that is usually quite nice and round, and you can even pick it up. Smells like grass. A ducks poop is more like diarrhea. It just squirts out and goes everywhere, and it's not very nice at all. Anyway, enough of stinky. Let's get in there and get these ducks so that I can package them up and
take them to their new home, which is a poultry farm that have agreed to take them off my hands. I've ordered poultry, mainly
chickens, from them before. I think I got some of my
original Pekin ducks from them, as well. I'm going to get more chickens. I'm thinking maybe at least seven. And that's got to do a little bit with one of the other reasons why I
wanna get rid of the ducks. And I'll share that with you soon. All right. Speaking about
getting them to their new home, let's go and catch them. Okay, do I need my net? Maybe. (ducks quacking) Well, the drake got away. Well, that was pretty good. Not too bad. Not too hassled. Okay, now I think I get mum first, and then the two little ones. (ducks quacking) There you go. There. She's
back with her parents. I should be able to get these pretty easy. They're fast! There you go, a double duck. Or in cricket, what do they call that? A golden duck. Well, these
are two golden ducks. I think if you get out for two
ducks in cricket, it's a... I can't remember. Comment
in the comment section. Yeah, let's go. Whew, tell you what,
that was a good workout. Getting those ducks up the hill there. I'm sweating the river, but before I get into the car and we go, number five, or reason number five of why I'm getting rid of the ducks, is because they actually eat a lot. They eat more than chickens, and they not only eat,
but they waste feed. And if you've got chickens
and ducks together, and they're both eating the same feed, it can be quite expensive. Because they will pull the feed out, they will chomp and they'll waste feed. Whereas chickens can
rake feed, and all that. But if you've got the right
setup and the right feeder, you can limit that raking, and then you can limit spillage out, which means you get less rodents, you get less waste of feed
and less waste of money. Now this is no particular
order, by the way. But reason number six is
a fairly sinister one. I was elaborating on that
before and that is, well, I found out the hard way that
ducks, particularly drakes, can actually kill chickens. And we lost two that I
know of to our Drake. It's a shame that, you know, I'd never seen that behavior before. But when I did see it happening, and I started reading up on it, it became obvious that it
wasn't an isolated thing. Lots of people have trouble
with ducks attacking chickens. That should work. (cheerful music) So here they are, the three Apple- well, two ducks and one drake,
and the two little ones. - [Woman] Right, okay. Yep. - [Mark] Okay, cool.
Their new home for now. That's two. There's two white ones. I'm glad I'm not trying to
chase them and catch them. And the last two. I'll
give them a good home. - [Woman] Here we go. - [Mark] Thanks for that. - [Woman] No worries. All right, let's go home. Better than the ducks. Okay, it's already a heck
of a lot quieter down here, I have to say. We'll let these new girls out, they can mingle with the old hens and suss out their new home. And we'll keep them in
here, in this run and coop, for, you know, a few days
till they get used to it. Go on, have a look around. Come on, you can't stay in there. Oh, that was good. Nice drive. Dropped the ducks off. All good. Eight new hens. That'll bring
our total back up to 12, which will be perfect for lots of eggs. These pullets, they're at point of lay. They might start laying very soon. Sometimes it can take them several weeks before they start laying, but
it's a laying season as well. It's not like we're going
into winter or anything. They'll get their
pecking order sorted out, and they'll start finding
the food and water. And speaking of the new hens
getting some water and drink. Number seven of- They're sorting out the
pecking order, there. But number seven for getting rid of ducks is dirtying up the chicken water. No matter what you do,
you can have a big pool, or a big drum or a big
bucket for the ducks to dip their heads in, and snort and snuffle, and make a big mess. But they will still seek
out the chicken waters. And I like to have some
cup waters for the hens. The problem is the ducks get into them and they constantly push
them down and dirty them up, but they also keep pushing
them and emptying them out. So you'll have a 20 liter drum of water and the ducks will empty it
out, sometimes overnight. Number eight is processing
ducks. We got ducks to eat. We love eating ducks,
especially Nina and the boys. It's one of their most
favorite meats to eat. And when you have fresh duck meat, it really is blooming good. The only thing is getting
it to that stage is tough. It's the hardest bird that I
personally have had to process. I know that there are techniques and easier ways to do things, and you can wax the birds and all that. But if you're just doing it occasionally, I'd happily pay a good organic farm the money to get some fresh duck. Number nine is a pretty
simple one. It's flighty. I've never liked the way that
ducks have never warmed to me. I don't know why, but every time I sort of come down, no matter how many ducks or what species I've kept
over this last 10 or so years, it's like it's the first
time they've seen Mike Myers out of Halloween coming to get
them and they just scatter. They don't like coming near me. And some of these ducks I've reared from duckling all the way up. I mean, I haven't had them in my bedroom, or anything like that, but you would think that some them would've warmed a little
bit to me. But never have. It's not like chickens. Yes, chickens will sort of run away to try to catch them and all that, but they often give you company. They'll nibble at your boots, They'll get rid of grass, seed, and all that from your socks. They will walk around with you. So chickens to me are more
friendlier than ducks. And the last reason, the very last reason, why I'm getting rid of our ducks, or why I've got rid of our
ducks, is the duck eggs. We don't like them. I know there's some people out there that probably swear by them. I know body builders love them because of the high protein content. I know bakers like them because
of the high protein content. But to us, duck eggs were too earthy. They're not as nice as chicken eggs. In fact, they're nowhere
near as good as chicken eggs. Chicken eggs are so mild
and they're nice to eat, whereas duck eggs are yucky. And there's no other way to put it, as far as we're all concerned. The other thing is ducks tend to lay or drop eggs everywhere. It attracts the crows
and other types of birds that want to get the eggs. Whereas chickens lay them
in their nesting boxes. Chickens are so much more
organized than ducks. Mozzie. Got him too. So for those reasons, the duck
eggs just weren't cutting it. And now I'm glad we've
down to duck egg zero. Anyway, it's been a big day. It's been very emotional
getting rid of our ducks. Not. It's going to be be bliss and it's going to be so
much quieter, as well. Well, I hope you enjoyed this video. What about you? Am I wrong about ducks or
am I right about ducks? Whack your opinion in the
comment section below. Have a bit of a laugh. I'll be looking forward to reading them. Thanks a lot for watching. Don't forget to subscribe
if you haven't already, and share this video around because it helps my channel out heaps. Bye for now.
