Expert advice on the growing world of backyard poultry
Backyard chicken ownership rose from 8 percent of homes in 2018 to 13 percent in 2020, and the numbers are expected to shoot up even more when details emerge from 2020–2022, when the pandemic led many people to build a coop. Rising egg prices are adding additional motivation.
But there is more than one way to get a supply of eggs from your backyard, and some say ducks offer similar benefits with fewer problems than chickens. To learn more, we caught up with Susan and Aaron von Frank of Tyrant Farms in Greenville, who are parents to one toddler and a flock of Welsh harlequin ducks.
Q & A with Susan and Aaron von Frank of Tyrant Farms
Do you think ducks and/or chickens are a good idea for many homeowners? Is there a large time commitment with both?
Keeping backyard poultry requires a lot of planning, resources, time, and care in order for the animals to have a high quality of life—and eventually, they’ll require medical care, which can be knowledge-intensive or expensive if a trip to an avian vet is necessary. (A shout out to HealthPointe Veterinary Clinic in Duncan, which provides excellent avian veterinary services.)
Many people jump into getting backyard poultry with the misguided notion that they’ll be saving money relative to buying store-bought eggs. Then they quickly realize their assumptions were faulty. So we encourage people not to get backyard poultry unless they have a clear view of what’s involved and are committed to the project for many years.
What are the main benefits of having ducks and chickens?
The most obvious benefit of raising backyard poultry is producing high-quality, hyper-local eggs—or for some people, possibly even meat. Our ducks are also hilarious, quirky pets who happen to make us breakfast, something a dog or cat can’t do. Also, gram per gram, duck eggs are substantially more nutritious than chicken eggs, and ours are produced by animals who have the highest quality of life and nutrition possible, something we can’t say with certainty when buying grocery store eggs, regardless of the labels attached.
Other benefits: We view our yard as a human-orchestrated ecosystem that serves multiple functions ranging from food production to carbon sequestration to wildlife habitat. Our ducks are an integral part of that system. They’re excellent at controlling pests like slugs and snails. They make high quality fertilizer and their spent bedding is used to make compost or mulch that keeps our perennial fruit and nut trees thriving.
We’ve all heard of chicken coops—do ducks require coops as well? Do they require similar spaces?
Ducks require well-built coops to prevent them from being killed by predators—a larger protected run is often a good idea, too. Many urbanites are surprised to learn that predator pressure is actually worse in urban environments than rural environments due to the relative abundance of raccoons, hawks, etc.—all of which will happily kill unprotected backyard poultry.
Chickens need roosting perches and individual nesting boxes. Mallard-derived duck breeds will lay in a communal nest making the process of morning egg collection easy. Most ducks also sleep on the ground rather than perching.
Is one noisier? Do you find ducks or chickens better for people who might have nearby neighbors?
Male chickens are incredibly noisy, as anyone who’s heard a morning rooster call knows. Female chickens are fairly quiet. Those features are reversed in ducks. Female ducks can be quite loud—we jokingly call them feathered bagpipes. Drakes/male ducks aren’t loud; they make more of a raspy blurp-blurp-blurp sound.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, our neighbors will never hear our ducks. Our ducks only get loud when and if we aren’t staying on schedule. If we’re late letting them out of their coops in the morning or late letting them out for their evening romp, they use all of their vocal capacities to make sure we remedy our grave error.
Do you consider them pets?
How you raise your ducks makes a big difference. We raise ours to be very comfortable around us, which takes a lot of hands-on care and time. We also consider our ducks to be pets and enjoy a good duck cuddle from time-to-time. Sometimes, we’ll even bring a couple of our ducks inside for movie night. Yes, we have duck diapers . . . if you’re bringing your ducks indoors on occasion, having duck diapers is essential.
Poultry pets
How does weather factor into this decision? Is our Upstate climate better for one than the other?
When it comes to climate and weather tolerance, there is variability by breed in both species. However, ducks are generally a better all-weather species than chickens. For instance, chickens don’t like cold weather; ducks love it. Chickens don’t like wet weather; ducks love it.
Our ducks do fine here in the summer as well, although they do require shade (as do chickens) and swimming water (which chickens don’t need).
What effects do chickens and ducks have on your landscape? Is it best to give them free range in a large yard?
We’ve kept ducks for about a decade and have never lost one to a predator, knock on wood. But that fact is not due to luck or chance, it’s due to careful planning and care. Everybody likes the idea of free-ranging poultry, including the poultry. However, without certain protections in place, free-ranging poultry will quickly become food for birds of prey and other predators—including the neighbor’s dog who just escaped.
As for the effects on a landscape, chickens scratch everything up. Ducks root with their bills searching for worms and other prey, but they don’t scratch. Turning either species of poultry loose in a garden bed full of small edible annual plants like kale and lettuce isn’t a good idea. First, it’s not a great idea to ingest bird poop on your salad. Second, they’ll eat every bit they can and trample the rest.
Our ducks are kept confined to our backyard during the day, which is chock full of larger edible perennials that they can fertilize, but not damage (peaches, persimmons, caneberries, pomegranates, etc.). But we only let them out to free-range the rest of our yard alongside us during the evening (our presence keeps predators away). We have a whole slew of tricks and techniques for keeping our ducks from destroying our yard and garden beds when they’re out.
More on ducks or chickens as pets
A couple of caveats here: first, there are general differences in temperament and sociability between breeds, meaning certain breeds are more likely to make better pets than others. Second, even within breeds, there are individual differences in temperament and sociability. For instance, each of our Welsh Harlequin ducks has a different personality, even though they’re all the same breed.
Also, how you raise your ducks makes a big difference. We raise ours from Day 1 to be very comfortable around us, which takes a lot of hands-on care and time. We also consider our ducks to be pets and enjoy a good duck cuddle from time-to-time.
Sometimes, we’ll even bring a couple of our ducks inside for movie night. Yes, we have duck diapers. That’s one advantage cats and dogs have over ducks: they have the capacity to be house-trained. Ducks have neither the capacity nor interest in house-training, so if you plan to shun CDC guidelines and common sense by bringing your ducks indoors on occasion, having duck diapers is essential.
For more on this topic as well as advice on gardening, foraging, parenting, and more, visit tyrantfarms.com.
