Post your exotic/domestic duck aviary/pool pics

[KansasKid]

What kind of wire do you have on the side of yours?

p.s. Looks awesome, wish i had a set up like yours.

 

[swheat]

Quote:
Nice ! I need to get busy and get started on a aviary...all the beautiful duck pics..

Does any one have pics of the normal Bahama pintails ?

Here you go! I need ot get some better ones

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/52664_2010_new_babies_209.jpg

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/52664_2010_new_babies_123.jpg

Thanks Kanga for posting the pics. I think I like them better than the silvers, only because of the contrast. It shows off the cheeks more...

 

[kangababy]

Quote:
How clean/clear does your water stay? We have 1 pen that has water 24/7 with that large body of water and we can see maybe a foot down but that is it.

 

[waterdog]

All of our pens are 5' 1 x 2 welded wire with 3' pole barn steel on the bottom about 12-16" of the steel is in the ground.

 

[waterdog]

Kanga, we clean them about every six weeks with a bleach solution, they are only about 14 inches deep we started with deeper ones they would get a lot of solids on the bottom by filling them in with the water flowing you can always see the bottom. We clean them because algae builds on the sides, we tried a couple of the shallow ponds to see how the divers would do in them and they seem to do better than the deeper ones we had I think because the water stays cleaner. With the shallow ponds the ducks keep it "stirred" up and most of the waste flows out instead of building up on the bottom.

 

[kangababy]

Thanks! Our pond is 50-60,000 gallons and anywhere from 1-3ft deep. It takes so long to drain and don't know how the ruddies would get out if we drained it all! It's all a learning process.

I've thought about throwing some water plant seeds in to see if I could get them to grow or tilipia or koi to help keep it clean.

 

[Knock Kneed Hen]

Oh man, if DH enjoyed birds as much as I do I KNOW we would get into all sorts of trouble!! I loved looking at all of your pens and beautiful ducks.

 

[waterdog]

Seen the pictures looks like a awsome pond, thats what keeps this hobby fun for us after almost twenty years we are still learning and doing things different all of our geese are getting moved to a new pen we built over the summer it has all been seeded and sectioned in to 25' x 25' squares for each pair no ponds just 3' x 3' water pans it is 75' x 100' netted hopefully they will produce in it and the pasture seeding can with stand there grazing.

 

[KansasKid]

Waterdog how deep of ponds are your divers in? (Particularly the mergansers if you have any)

Well my pond has no water flow through it and no filter (anymore) so i am emptying it out every two weeks or so. and when i emptied it my sump pump would get only so much of the silt out of the bottom so it always had a tinge to it. And filling back up every two weeks was taking its toll on our water bill. Well to solve the water problem i used the water from our cistern to fill it back up (Witch i should have down to start with) and to solve the silt problem i went and borrowed my neighbors wet/dry vacuum. And yes they new what i was going to use it for, and it is surprisingly cleaner now that have used it and cleaned it then it was to start with.

 

[waterdog]

We have the Hooded Mergansers, Common Mergansers, and Smew they are on ponds that are about 14 inches deep they still dive under and swim along the bottom. We had them on 3 foot deep ponds before these shallow ones but had to clean them more often they seem to do just as good on the shallow ones as the deeper ones.