Indoor duck pen/house, who had it? Nettie?

Bump

Hi. I've been searching for days for this indoor coop I saw on this message board when i first joined. I can't find it anywhere, and I posted asking Nettie if it had been hers, but haven't gotten an answer? I found pics of Nettie's plans, but not of the final product, which i am pretty sure it was hers i saw the pic of. We may have to give up our ducks, :*( (BTW, if anyone is interested, they are amazing, adorable healthy ducks! I'm in NJ) But if this happens, we want to try to keep two of them in the basement, Blue and Lucky. Thanks guys and gals.

Dawn

bump

Yes, nettie posted a design for her indoor coop.

She has been quite ill lately, and also has been moving her business operations. Oh, and taking care of her ducks.

I will poke around and see if I can find the thread.

Our runners spend a good bit of time in the basement (walkout, with loads of windows, 60 sf, don't worry about them) while the weather is wicked cold and the few feet of snow on the ground is getting soaked with rain and ice. sigh.

Anyway, will edit when I find the design.

ETA - just reread OP - so you've found the plans, https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=365100

As far as I know, they still have not been able to get it built. Been busy, yes.

My goodness what a nice place, I would like to live there...

Hi guys!

We could not find a carpenter or a handyman that would build our design, so we had to do it ourselves. We ended up making them a big L shaped pen using nothing but ikea furniture and a little bit of scrap wood. It came out great! The ducks just moved in the other night and are therefore not happy with it yet. I'll try to get some photos tomorrow of the pen when there is some daylight in there (I have to use my phone). Only 4 of the 6 ducks are to live in this pen but Victor and Ming Mei are there for a little while, while their new pen in being built at my new condo. I priginally was going to move into the condo so I could work, and we recently had the time/money for me to move there. My two stinkers will live in a pen that's being built in a walk in closet. The condo is a tiny studio, so they get the biggest closet I will definitely post pictures when that is done.

The Ikea Pen took about 3 weeks to build (thanks to holidays and illness and floods it took longer than expected) and is modular so we can clean or move the sections around one at a time. We can also add on if we need to in the future. The L shape takes up two whole walls, including part of the closet, and is about 50 square feet over all. Again, pics to come later!

Each section of the pen cost $45 for the frame, but we added legs, and better floors (plywood with tiling) so the whole thing ended up costing just under $500 for a 50 square foot house to hold four ducks.

Anyone with 2 ducks or less, I can give you our plans and ideas for a super cheap pen made from ikea wardrobes that cost under $150. We also used two frames, like the ones in the new pen as a hospital for Norie when she was sick. That design could easily hold 1-2 ducks as long as they got outside of pen time.

If anyone wants the google sketch up files for our original design, to use the design for yourself, it's to scale... and you can find someone who will build it for you.... just let me know! Living in the heart of downtown Chicago, poeple kept wanting to WAY overcharge us in labor (like $4500 just for labor! crazy!) The supplies, depending on where you live, would probably cost about $450-$500 if you use high grade plywood and either seal it or put laminate over it. we budgeted it to be about $1000-$1500 to have it built. I had several takers at that price, but it kept falling through (we went through 7 contractors/builders before we decided "to heck wirth it, let's make something ourselves!)

I've been thinking on an inside spot for a couple of calls when we build on to the house.

I was thinking an indoor celarium (spelling?) type room with lots of windows for potted plants, and a concrete floor with a pond.
Not sure if it would be a sunken pool or above ground pond kit.
There's a lot of grasses and such that wouldn't be toxic, and would do well.

With concrete walls that go up 4 feet, and Cedar on the rest of the walls and celing, would be good to go as far as moisture safe, and I could spread shavings out on the concrete floor, and spray the floor down to wash it.
You know, and easy clean up area like a pool room, just ducky style

I think a person could set a room up to be quite comfortable to sit on a bench in there and watch the ducks do their thing on a cold winter's day.

Now I don't feel like a crazy duck lady.... I see I'm not the only one who wants ducks in the house

IzzyD,


And I like your idea!

Thanks

I just realized that this was my first post.
I've been floating around for a long time, thought I'd posted before.

Would definately be fun to have quackers in the house.
Too busy with finishing projects this year, but hoping to get started on it next year.
Gives me lots of time for planning.

Hubbie's my contractor, so I'm lucky there.

An indoor pond could be plumbed in si it's just the turn of a valve to empty out, and to go a step farther, it could be plumbed to go to a holding tank outside, and used to water the flowers, and grass.


I wonder what kind of indoor landscaping a person could try.

A thought that had corssed my mind was Hypertufa.

Instead of using gravel mixed with portland cement, peat moss is used. It's usually used to make lightwieght rock looking planters.
Could be fun trying to make big lightweight boulders, or anything you might want to look like rock.

I'll have to look it up again, and see what the exact mix is to make hypertufa.


Just an idea, will be interesting to see what other ideas everyone has

there is a post somewhere of someone who built a very involved indoor basement habitat for their woodies... I'll have to see if I can find it...