Will roosters and chickens hurt the tentative ducks one hatch? Our ducks and chickens share a coop.?
NO. Chickens are not aggressive towards other similar size birds but will try to chase smaller birds away from their food.
If the mother duck is there, she'll protect them. If not, they'll need to be separated. The adult chickens and ducks will try to set up a chain of command. They probably wouldn't mean to hurt the ducklings, just show who's boss, but they could kill them whether too aggressive. Remember a heat lamp for warmth.
Answers: Probably at first the big birds won't know what the ducks are and will probably want to investigate. We have two 10 week old chicks and two newly hatch ducklings. The chicks enjoy chasing the ducklings a bit, but they are probably just playing.
Roosters can get a bit more aggressive. Also at first, for the first one or two weeks you should hold on to the little newly hatched ducks inside, because I've heard of a few cases when ducklings gone outside die of cold.
Chickens might eat the ducklings food, and they will be scared and won't approach the feeder because of the braver chickens, so a accurate tactic is to cut a little hole in the top of a bucket, place it upside down so the ducklings can go and get through the hole but the chickens can't. Put the food under the bucket.
Good luck with your current additions :)
they will be curious, but chickens and ducks usually get along only just fine. Maybe if you allowed the ducks a larger range, they could keep themselves out of the chickens channel if they feel threatened.
The mum / dad will look after them. You want to spawn sure the coop is big enough that the duck wont attack the other birds all the time, they are exceptionally protective and aggresive when they have babies.
Goodluck :)
