Old Style Book - Ducks & Goats Advice Needed

Ducks...first thing to remember is that they are messy messy creatures, do not, I repeat, do not buy them if you want a couple of nice looking ducks on your garden pond, within a week it will be a stinking mess.
Get a easy tippable over water container, I use an old sandpit and refill and clean every couple of days.
They also love digging holes in lawns, so if you love a perfect lawn, no ducks. They shoot poo everywhere, as well as in water as soon as they get in to it.
They can eat the same foods as chickens, but not dry mash.

As you can imagine with wet pooey creatures, the eggs can cause a bit of a problem, add to that the fact that the eggs are more porous than chicken eggs and you have the problem of dirty eggs not being good to eat. If we have a very messy egg, it gets thrown away, if it only has a small amount of mud on it, it gets cleaned with a small amount of warm water (must be warmer than the egg) then cleaned with a dry cloth.

Which brings to the next problem, your ducks may be better than mine, but mine hate going into a house and lay absolutely everywhere, change laying areas, from everyday to sometimes lasting a couple of weeks. In fact I've stopped trying to get them in to their house at night and they stay out all year round.
Also drakes in my experience are very aggressive and I wouldn't have another without a large field to lose it in.

They look funny walking and will fall over anything laying on the ground, even a pencil will send a duck flying and they never seem to learn where that hose is lying on the ground.....

EDIT

OK, I just realised I didn't actually answer any of the initial questions. So.

Where to buy: look in the back of smallholder mag. Or search on the internet. Look through smallholder forums.
Up keep costs: Same as chickens roughly. But you can sell eggs for slightly more than chickens and our ducks lay more than the chickens on a free range lifestyle.
How to sell on produce: We sell all our eggs at the front door, with a sign on it.
We have Khaki Cambells, they can lay an egg almost everyday of the year. Buy from a good egg laying line, ask.
We payed about £10 per duck at about laying age. Thats about the right price, but you can easily pay more.

Curry_Queen wrote:

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They do make extremely entertaining pets though, although I would advise caution around younger children, especially with the larger breeds, as they do have a habit of head-butting and climbing on people and would easily have a small person off their feet in no time!

I can second this. My bil used to have a goat that would walk him to the school bus every morning and come back to meet him in the afternoon :rotfl: (They also had a chicken that went on holiday with them and sat on the back seat of the car, but that's definitely off topic )

Sorry - no other useful advice, just thought I'd share my little anecdotes with you.

Curry_Queen wrote:

LOL! I can quite well believe it! They are extremely intelligent animals and quickly adapt to a set routine. We used to take ours for walks on a lead, although I'm sure some of the gardeners in the area were none too pleased as she used to lop off any flower heads poking over the garden wall/fence as we walked past :rotfl:

Are you quite sure your real name isn't Barbara & you don't live in Surbiton?:rotfl:

Only second-hand experience but where my DH works he has to look after the small collection of farm animals and he was pleasantly surprised by how easy goats are to care for - much less hassle than sheep especially regarding foot rot, flies etc. The ones at his work have a climbing frame that keeps them happy. They don't breed from them though so no milking experience - but given the rise of goat products popularity they probably make sense if you like goats milk. I don't know what the law is on selling unpasteruised goats milk although I know a farm that sells unpastuerised cow's at the farm gate so perhaps there aren't any rules.

See the latest Christmas River cottage programme for what to do with the boy goats - what was it called, Man's water or something - the goat heads looked creepy!

My sister is threatening to buy us some duck eggs off ebay for Easter so that's one possible source! You'd need a broody chicken/incubator obviously to go down that route!

Personally I can't stand goats as I was forced into being a goatherder at an early age by a father who gave up a lucrative job, joined the "back to the land" movement of the 70's and moved to West Wales to live on comfrey & nettle soup. Most of it was Ok but the goats were my least favourite bit; "capricious" was invented just for them. That's why they need a goatherder.

Basically, whatever you want a goat to do it opposes on principle. Some people find this amusing. Goats do indeed eat almost everything whether it's good for them or not. They are consummate escape artists and are good at climbing. For this reason many people keep them tethered but they will do their utmost to strangle themselves by winding the tether round themselves, each other or any convenient inanimate object. They destroy any plant or tree within reach. They actively seek company but do not seem to be especially grateful for it. Some of them bite; many of them butt (hard) , especially if you are small or frightened. They're not difficult to milk once you get the hang of it but they kick the bucket over as soon as you have finished. The milk is often strong tasting and can be an acquired taste. You may have gathered that I didn't acquire it. They need to be brought in at night during the winter (altho this was West Wales) and this is a slow & tiresome business. Finally, they don't get ill often or easily but when they do it invariably seems to end in death as they seem to simply lose the will to live.
You could say they give up the goat.. Personally I'd go for a house cow - something small like a Dexter. Goats are just too damned eccentric.