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Anybody have chickens or other poultry birds?

Scat said:
The yolks are darker in color, larger and creamier. They are also higher in Omega-3's. That said, there's not THAT big of a difference in taste.

They do come in all sorts of cool colors. We get brown, beige, white, pink, green and blue eggs from our chickens. No need to dye eggs at easter!
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If you can't taste the difference your not feeding them right. No sulfur smell or taste in the eggs. they will destroy a garden but if your place is big enough they green the lawn not kill it. Ducks are cool but I didn't care for the taste of their eggs to greasy our ducks are pets. Just don't get a rooster all the hens become mean when there is a rooster in the flock.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
 
And back to the posters original question... lets get back on topic people.

I have chicken at least once a week, definitely more than I have beef.
I rarely have duck, twice in my life that I can think of... wasn't impressed.

I would go with chicken.
 
Scat said:
I've had ducks in the past and currently have chickens.

Ducks are less likely to destroy the yard but they are messy sons of a bitches! Every night they will hunker down on the warm cement (porches, patios, flagstones, anything that retains heat from the day) and by morning you will have a duck-**** slick that you will need to hose off before walking on said cement. They are good at pest control and will mow down grasshoppers like nobody's business. They even eat snails. If you have a garden they will molest leafy greens so lettuces and such will still grow they just won't look great.

Chickens are another story. They eat everything. Tomatoes, squash, most any vegetable plant, most any flower... OK, pretty much any plant. They also scratch to uncover food. You will have dirt from the flowerbeds all over your lawn and patio. They also tear the hell out of the grass and kill it. The upside is that just 3 or 4 chickens can be kept in a relatively small, contained area. They do also eat insects.

Both can be noisy but in my experience the chickens are by far the worst. Even the hens start "clucking" at sunrise and don't shut up until you feed and water them.

That said, we get anywhere from 6 to 9 eggs a day from the chickens so we always have fresh eggs.

Let me know if you have any other questions. I'll be happy to answer them.
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Thanks, Scat. We have officially reserved 4 khaki campbell ducklings, to be picked up 3/29. We are OK with fencing off the perimeter of the backyard if need be, as that's where we plant the garden. We usually plant tomatoes, green beans, the typical stuff. Some of that we plant on a portion of our retaining wall, up higher. We already have a raspberry patch, strawberries and two fruit trees (peach & cherry). The ducks will probably spend quite a bit (or most) of time free-ranging in the yard, though we'll keep an eye out and see how it goes with the garden and all. We plan to build a run for them when they're old enough to be out, and keep a house in there for them to sleep in, so they can be contained at night and when we're not home. The run we intend to keep lightweight so we can move it around. Our neighbors have a couple of ducks, and they're just out in the yard all the time. They just have a dog house for shelter, but the ducks really like being out in the yard, even in the snow. They haven't had issues with neighborhood cats or anything. With them scattered around the yard much of the time and having a moveable run for when they are contained, I think (hope) the grass will be OK as their containment can be moved around every few days.

We'll probably get a little kiddie pool for them to play in, too. We will keep that on the cement, away from the grass to keep the whole area from getting muddy.
 
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