1900 Gallons of ducky bliss

[Tevyes Dad]

Well, this year we decided finances weren't looking so good for either the pond construction or the super quack shack. But duckies can't be kept happy on meal worms alone. OK, they probably can... So we decided for the time being we would get them a super stock tank 11 X 2 ft. We went and talked to our local feed store (only one we have). They talked to their supplier and we will be lucky if we can get one by mid to late summer. Well, that won't do... Our nearest other towns (all of them) are around 100 miles away or more and we don't have anything that could get a 400 lb 11x2ft stock tank here, for them to ship freight, you have to buy 3 or the packing costs more than the tank. Well, we will have to wait until our feed store can get one. But in the meantime... I got them a 12' by 30" cheapie pool and built a two way ramp out of PVC pipe so they wouldn't try to climb the side walls and scratch it with their claws. A couple of days ago, they knew something was up when I laid down a tarp and set up the pool. Greta and Pocahontas were the first on the scene to inspect the tarp.



They brought in Tevye and Snow for a second opinion.



Snow muttered something under her breath probably about the tarp being to clean to be in their yard. They called in the rest of the flock and the situation was soon remedied.



I didn't do a super job of leveling or put sand under it since no one would be walking on the bottom of the pool and I figured that the tarp would take care of the constant pressure of the water. The weather picked up while I was finishing the construction so I put about 100 gallons of water in it (about an inch and a half) and figured with 800 lbs of water in it it wouldn't blow away.

The next day I filled the pool and went shopping for parts to build the ramp.

The next day I built the ramp. Everything was ready... Just had to wait the hour or so before the wife got home (couldn't let them christen their new pool without her). I put the ramp up against the pool and blocked it with a 100 gallon stock tank. They were all curious what was going on. They had seen the pool now for two days, but from a duck's eye view, it was just a big blue building. I sat out and watched them. They darted back and forth from me to the ramp. They knew something was going to happen but not what. Finally, the wife got home. I removed the stock tank and we put some meal worms on the ramp to let them know where they were supposed to go. As each duck crested the top of the ramp and their perspective went from meal worms to pool you could see they were very happy. They practiced using the ramp going in and out repeatedly.


"Really... for us!!!"


"Wow! I can really spread my wings in this!!!"


"There's enough room for everybody!!!"

 

[Tevyes Dad]

All the ducks are enjoying the new pool. But yesterday Rhiannon was having a field day above and beyond everyone else. When the flock first moved outside, Rhiannon was liked, but was still on the bottom of the pecking order. No duck was very aggressive toward her normally, but when a kiddie pool was full, there might have been some resistance to her going in, so she never swam much. As a duckling, she always liked swimming in the little pools they had indoors so it seemed strange that she didn't swim outdoors. After a couple weeks, we picked her up and put her in one of the kiddie pools. I guess it never occurred to her to go in the pool that wasn't full of other ducks that were higher in the pecking order. She splashed around and had a grand old time. Since then, she gets her turn in the pool, but waits until every one else is done. Again, nobody was mean to her, she just knew she got last dibs. Now the pool is big enough for everyone and she can swim as much as she wants and it is deep enough that she can dive... She dove under the water for 20-30 seconds at at time making multiple laps around the pool then popped back up. That didn't make for very good pictures, but I did catch her enjoying some major ducky bliss.

This picture was just before one of those dives... She was just revving her engine to get ready for it.

Oops, found a little spot that needs more waterproofing...


Having fun...






Woo Hoo!






Then she got out and met her "boyfriend" Tevye on the ramp...


Although none of the ducks were having quite as much fun as Rhiannon, I did catch Roxette busting a move...

 

[Tevyes Dad]

We are now on our fifth year with this pool. I am currently trying to get a sand filter and UV clarifier plumbed in. The ramp has deteriorated and we've decided that the pool is a great idea. They like it because it's big. We like it because it is low maintenance compared to kiddie pools and with 5 years on the same pool, whenever we have to replace it, we really can't complain. So I decided to make their "forever ramp". It was made with pressure treated lumber (outside the pool) and PVC (inside the pool) supporting composite decking. I made it twice as long as their old ramp so that it isn't as steep and put a 45 degree turn going into the pool so that the ramp itself could be to the far right of the pool so that although it gets the morning sun, the hotter sun in the afternoon and evening won't make it too hot for their feet. I wanted something that I could hose down easily and it is very stable with leveling feet on the outside sections. It was made in 4 sections to make it easier to transport / clean. I think I may have made it a bit too comfortable though as I just caught Roxette on the pool cam taking a nap on the ramp.

 

[Tevyes Dad]

Whoa!!!! Spoiled ducks!!!! What's your plans for keeping it clean?? I have one of those pools in my attic that we don't use anymore

This has only been partially thought out, but here is my foundation, and we will see what happens as reality kicks in.

First I will divide "dirt" into three categories:

1. Poop
2. OTP (Other than poop: sand, dirt, leaves, bark, rocks, oyster shell, etc.)
3. Algae

Last summer the ducks had two sources of water
1 Kiddie pools.
2 Stock tanks.

The kiddie pools hold about 150 gallons of water and are completely trashed in a day.
The Stock tanks hold 100 gallons of water but are deep and need to be changed every other day and can be stretched to every 3 days.

In both cases, they averaged 2 pools for the whole flock.

The stock tanks stayed cleaner for the following reasons:
1. The ducks had to climb a ramp to get to the stock tanks. They couldn't reach the water from the ground or the ground from the water. This drastically lowered the OTP levels.
2. The additional depth allowed the poop to settle to the bottom leaving the surface water relatively clean. In the kiddie pools it was constantly stirred up.

Water saturation based on this experience is: 300 gallons/day worst case 66 gallons/day best case. This should translate to 6 - 29 days as a base line and due to the depth and the ramp, I would expect it to be closer to the latter.

Half of my property is swamp. This is where the ducks would like to live, but it is hard to construct a fence and keep out predators there. However, dumping water is no problem. My base plan is to dump approx 1/2 of the pool (pumped from the bottom where the yucky stuff is) into the swamp every weekend. This would give me approximately a 14 day cycle for the water which should be sufficient for dealing with #1 and #2. Additionally since this pool won't be flipped over and has a large surface area, it will need to be skimmed every day (2 minutes) to eliminate OTP type 2 which would be leaves and feathers.

Now for #3. Last summer, the kiddie pools had quite a bit of algae growth (blue-green) which had to be scrubbed out every day. They are shallow and heat up quickly. The stock tanks were in gazebos so did not have direct sunlight and grew a small amount of brown algae which could be easily hosed off since it doesn't cling as tightly to the sides of the tank. I think the difference was the shade and the depth of the water which didn't allow the water to heat up as quickly.

1900 gallons is around 15,000 lbs. of water. That means that it requires 15,000 BTUs to raise the whole pool 1 degree. It takes 8340 BTUs to evaporate a gallon of water so if I lose 25 gallons of water / day (that would only be between 1/4" and 3/8" of water level) , I would lose 208,500 BTUs just due to evaporation which would be enough to lower the temperature of the whole pool by nearly 14 degrees. Assuming 50% solar radiation for 16 hrs (worst case scenario) 1/2 * 433 (radiant energy constant) * 113 square feet * 16 hrs = 391,432, the sun has the potential to raise the temperature of the pool by 26 degrees. By putting a tarp over the entire pool area (approx 8-10 feet up), I should be able to provide some protection from hawks and eagles as well as eliminate nearly all of the radiant energy reaching the pool. The pool is large enough that I think it would end up fluctuating only a little from the average temp and due to the cooling from the evaporation, I would expect the range to be say 10 degrees below average at night up to average during the day. Algae grows once the temperature reaches around 60 F. The average daily temperatures here are as follows:

May 54F
Jun 63 F
Jul 70 F
Aug 69 F
Sep 58 F

This would lead me to expect moderate algae growth in June and heavy growth in July and August. But with my experience from last year, if I can construct the framework for the tarp before June, I should be able to limit my algae to the brown algae which wasn't that bad. Finally, I have one last bit of ammo in the algae battle. Our ground water is around 48 F year round. So if the pool temperature were 70 F and half of the pool was replaced with 48 F water, I would expect that would bring the temp down to 59 F. I will see what reality brings, but I have considered automating this by hooking a thermostat to the sump pump so that when the temp reaches say 58 F the pump will turn on until it falls to 55 F, then have a float valve maintain the pool level with 48 F well water.

Anyway, that is where my thinking is at now... We will see when reality kicks in

 

[Tevyes Dad]

Omg that is a pool!!! They look so happy.

I can't wait until the Swedish figure out they can really dive! Both of them loved swimming underwater as ducklings and last year dived as much as they could in the 100 gallon stock tanks. Now they can swim under water around the perimeter until they NEED to come up for air. I would love to see that!

 

[Tevyes Dad]

Some pics from last summer's goldfish feeds: Diving ducks everywhere!

 

[Tevyes Dad]

I got a new toy for the ducks a few weeks ago. It is a tube made for swimming/snow (It has a nice cap over the valve so it can't scratch or hurt a person / duck) I got it with the idea that they might like floating on it, hiding in it, diving under it and it might provide a buffer between some of the ducks and Kaine. I inflated it with the very least amount of pressure that would give it its shape so that if it "burst" it would be pretty uneventful. So far, duck claws don't seem to do a thing to it, so I think that won't be a problem.

On land, it took them about an hour to decide it wouldn't kill them and when worms were poured inside they had no problems hopping in and out of it. When I put it in their pool, it took two weeks for them to decide it wasn't a donut shaped crocodile intent on eating them (probably had to do with it bobbing around and being blown back and forth by the wind.) So a couple days ago, they decided it was no big deal so I've started to put worms inside it to get them motivated to experiment with it. Hoping they will learn they can fly into it our dive under it.

This was today's exercise (all pics were taken from security cam, so they aren't the greatest quality) ...

I started by adding "instant motivation" to the tube:


Noir learned the very first day that if she chest bumped the tube twice quickly, it would bounce some of the worms out from under the tube. It took the rest of the ducks 5 minutes to learn that when she did that, they should eat as many as they could.


This is the duck that after two years still can't open the food dispenser by herself so she stalks other ducks when they eat so she can mooch a bite while they hold it open.


There have been many attempts to board the tube when it is near the ramp, but it usually results in a duck falling in the water. This time there was enough back pressure from the other ducks that Tella was able to board the tube without pushing it away...


Tella was queen of the world with all the worms available to her and her alone

Nom, nom, nom...


Well her evil sister Ettie gave her a push...


And Pocahontas helped... (Edit: Just noticed in this and the next pic, Noir was bouncing the tube to get worms out which couldn't have helped as far as Tella staying on the tube

)


And they toppled the queen.


Of course that just made Tella's life easier... Nom, nom, nom...


So Pocahontas and Entie tried to get on board.


Pocahontas was successful, Entie, not so much...


A little later, Rhiannon and Entie tried to board.


Rhiannon got on board.


Pocahontas fell in...


Rhiannon followed suit...


And Entie still couldn't get in...


Rub-dub-dub three ducks in a tub(e)... Nom, nom, nom...


Well all good things must come to an end and they eventually ran out of worms

Pocahontas flew out with no problems...


Rhiannon swam out from under the tube (this was a first for any duck.)




Tella kind of leapt clumsily out of the tube.


But she did make it.


So now the tube is empty of both ducks and worms.

 

[donkeydew2farms]

that is a cool pool they sure look like they are having fun.

 

[Tevyes Dad]

I'm so jealous! (Minus the cleaning part) Seriously keep us updated on how that goes!

Today was the first clean. We pumped out the whole thing because:
1. It is difficult to guide the poop to the pump - mostly you just stir it up.
2. We tried feeding them peas and half of 4 lbs of peas we fed them over the week were in the bottom of the pool. Apparently it is too deep for them to want to pick the peas off the bottom. No more peas in the pool (can't wait to try goldfish when it is warmer though... In the past the fish didn't have a chance and were gone in an instant... in this pool, I think the ducks may have to work for their food

)

If it wasn't for the peas, it could have probably gone a second week. The water was obviously not drinking water (for me anyway) after 5 minutes and didn't get that much worse over the course of the week: by day 3 you couldn't actually see the bottom, but you are looking through 2-1/2 feet of water at a dull brown floor. Coming out of the hose the water looked clear which is much better than I can say for the kiddie pools I pumped. The droppings on the bottom were about a 50% covering at maybe 1/8".

It took about 3 hours to pump it down to about 200 gallons which is where our current sump pump starts sucking air. This was through a garden hose which worked fine for the large kiddie pools, but we might get a bigger hose later to speed it up. Doesn't really matter. I turned on the pump in the morning and we went out to eat and did a little shopping got back did a couple other chores and it was done. It took about another hour with the shop vac to vacuum out all the peas and most of the poop. There was almost no OTP in the pool other than the junk we threw in. There is another pump at our feed store that will pump down to 3/8" of water and I think that might work better if we follow a strict policy of not throwing non-floating food to the ducks.

The pool took 4 hours 22 minutes to fill (again with the garden hose) This probably won't change, but knowing the time, we can just set an alarm for say 4 hours and otherwise ignore it. At around 4 hours, the water is touching the bottom of the ramp, so I took the obstacles off the ramp so the ducks could go back in while the last couple hundred gallons were still filling. They had been in kind of a funk all day because now they knew what the big blue thing was and were deprived of it for 8 hours.

Here is a clip from a few minutes after the ramp was open to the ducks. I apologize in advance for Kaine, he has only one thing on his mind...

So at this point, I would say doing a pool change took about an hour of our time actively and we can probably get that down to 20 minutes if we don't throw peas in the pool. The pool was out of commission about 8 hours and that can probably be reduced to 5-6 hours (pump side will get shorter but fill side won't). This replaces about 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in the evening every day that we spend with the kiddie pools so 70 minutes / week. So far it really isn't that much more work total and it is much more fun to watch the duckies when they can dive and go nuts. We will see how it goes when it is warm enough to possible have algae problems.

 

[Tevyes Dad]

Hey ! Mom's got cucumbers !