Duck housing - HELP NEED PIX!!!

I've had 3 Golden 300 Hybrids from Metzer farm for 6 years now and have built them TWO house/runs of which I'm still not too crazy about.

Well, I've got a pair of Australian Spotted blueheads coming in October and I want their new house/run to be perfect. I have drawn up numerous plans and staked them out in the yard over and over but still have not come up with a final plan I'm satisified with. One of the musts is a wire floor 12-18" above ground. This is a must-have but the size/shape/design is what's got me stuck. Because of where it will be located (close enough to the end of the 75' hose and close enough for DH to snowblow to in winter) the complexity of design is somewhat limited.

Right now I'm stuck on a 4' x 16' design. This gives 64sq ft of predator proof area plus they'll have about 1,300 sq feet of netted, fenced yard for daytime. What I want in the run part is a small pool they will always have access to. I've got a visual stuck in my head that I can't quite get past but I know I could do better if I see other peoples set ups.

PLEASE post pix of your duck housing situations no matter what they look like. I really need inspiration

Is there a separate forum for other poultry housing and I'm just not seeing it??? I can only find the chicken one.

This holds my 2 muscovies. It is within a 60'x60' fenced area they run in with chickens also during the day. They stay in their area to lay and swim for awhile. The larger area has an electric wire running along the top and everyone gets locked up tight at night.
Good luck with yours.

I'm still in the process of building an 8'X12' outbuilding/duckhouse. You can see it in the background in the pic below. Since the pic, I have run electric and water to it. I plan to use a low pressure watering system inside the duckhouse so they don't make a mess splashing water around at night. I have added a duck entryway. I still need to install the linoleum, water-proof interior walls (so I can hose it down), and an interior seperation wall. The plan is to use 1/3 of the building for the ducks and 2/3 for tool storage.

Mine isn't anything special. Basically I got up one morning after getting NO sleep (them pecking at the walls all night) and said, that's it, you're going outside today!!!
So I put up a quick pen, with a pretty simple house. And they hardly even use it. They are outside all day and just go in to swim or sleep.

One thing is for certain. It is very easy to overdo it in duck housing. Provided it's predator proof, even a cage on the ground--from 2 x material and hardware cloth--maybe with a board on the top in case of rain is all you need (they need/want).

For winter all you need to do is toss some bedding in and put some boards around the sides for wind protection--maybe just held there with cinder blocks.............

another board held in the front maybe--if snow and yuk is expected......

I have 4 overly done coops and I realize I could make em much simpler and the birds will be just as happy...................

We get quite a bit of -20 weather and once in a while it will get to -30 here, with severe winds. We get quite a bit of snow, and last christmas we woke up to 2 FEET of new snow. So if anyone has any ideas on how to work with that I'd love to hear them. When I was little and had ducks, I just had a house made of straw bales and a tarp, but it's impossible to clean and eventually starts falling apart.

I'm thinking I'll surround that little plywood house with straw bales, or I have some blueboard I could use. If necessary I could get one of those dog house heaters for it, the dogs have to have one as they live outside too. I'll just have to shovel the pen.

I live in Wisconsin, and we had nights in the -20's last winter - and my ducks did just fine.

I have two pens like this:



It's just a 4'x8' plywood box (on a 2x4 frame, so if the plywood ever warps or rots it can easily be replaced). It has "vents" that I have covered with window-screen over wire mesh, to keep the bugs and the raccoons out. There's a little ducky-door on one side to let them in/out. I still have to get a proper roof on it, I'm going with a chunk of corrugated metal roofing that the neighbor has left over from partially roofing his dog run.

On the really cold nights during the winter, I give them a layer of pine shavings, piled with straw that I bank up on the sides. I also gave them an extra little plywood box within the bigger pen to cuddle up in and conserve body heat - which they seemed to appreciate, since they were constantly in it all winter. Of course, everything is painted with about 3-4 layers of good-quality exterior grade paint so they don't ruin it!

Hope that helps!

EEEEEEEEEXXXXXXXXXXXACTLY, JELLYBEAN AND ANNARIE

Just the kind of simple coop I plan on making from now on.

Roof can also be covered with plastic sheeting for further protection.

Another thing one can do for topward weather protection is to make some sawhorses 4' long and higher than your coop (assuming your coop isn't 8 feet tall, but more like three or four!!)

Make some kind of frame and either put hrdwr. cloth then plastic on the frame, set in on the horses and you now have a nice extra removable roof over your coop.

If you have a 4 X 8 for example, place two sawhorses in front, two in back (maybe have back horses lower and INTO prevailing winds) set your removable roof frame on that, and you're off!

You can also make an 8 x 8 frame, screw plywood sheets onto it, cover THEN with plastic, secure plastic somehow and if you set THAT over a 4 x 8 coop, you end up with awesome TWO FOOT overhangs, front and back. Practically nothing blows in under that.

If you can get UV stabilized plastic, so much the better!!!

If you don't want the whole shmeer to look like a shack, paint all your 'components' and it'll look good!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=101708

this link shows two of my coops. Both are used VERY successfully by Muscovies and K. Campbells.

I have two other coops, just completed in April, and plan on starting on a 4 x 8, simpler version. Just an enclosed cage with doors and seasonal weather protection boards I can use and not use as needed.