Tevye's Corner

[DuckyDonna]

I put my ducks in last night, or rather I should say they put themselves in while I secured the fort. They are such good ducks. I figured they haven't gotten much screen time lately so I would capture their good behavior

They get the run of their kennel and house at night. The kennel has the strength of the chain link fence. The protection of hardware cloth around the bottom 3' and 1' under ground. The deterrence of 3 lines of 7000V electric fence around the kennel and the entire thing is cover with a net surrounded by no-perch wires to keep owls/hawks/eagles away. The house and kennel are sewn together with steel wire so that nothing can squeeze in the area around the doorway between them.

Once it gets dark, they usually (in the winter) choose to go into the house for most of the night (two or three times a night, they go back out to hang around the "water cooler" and chat, then they go back in.)

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Here are a couple pictures of a "water cooler" party:
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In case you were wondering, my backyard is not lit up. The "lights" you see are the IR lights on the cameras inside and outside the duck house. The viewing camera sees the opposite camera as a bright light. The only visible light back there is the red bulb that indicates the fence is on.

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that is very cool. Boy, I'd kill to have that sink in my duck run! Craig's list, here I come!

 

[Tevyes Dad]

that is very cool. Boy, I'd kill to have that sink in my duck run! Craig's list, here I come!

The sink is just a plastic sink from Lowes. I have a hose that runs to the faucet that is hooked up and useful in the summer, then we blow it out in the winter so it doesn't freeze. In the winter incoming water is using a bucket from our yardcock. The drain on the basin just empties out into another part of the yard that the ducks can't get to. This is very handy especially in the winter. We bring new water in by hand, but dump the old water down the drain so we don't have to unplug the heated buckets or go very far with them. Since this doesn't go to a septic tank, and it is outdoors, there is no chance of getting swamp gas up the drain so there is no need for a trap. A trap would actually be a problem since that would hold water and freeze and make this whole setup useless (and probably broken) in the winter. I did use 2 90 degree elbows together to allow me to set the slope of the drain, but the whole thing is set to flow water fast and not hold any so that it doesn't have a chance to freeze.

Without the sink, we would have to carry the water out of the kennel, around the duck house and toss it over the back fence, so it definitely saves us a lot of work. And since the ducks can walk under it, it takes up no room as far as they're concerned.

 

[DuckyDonna]

The sink is just a plastic sink from Lowes. I have a hose that runs to the faucet that is hooked up and useful in the summer, then we blow it out in the winter so it doesn't freeze. In the winter incoming water is using a bucket from our yardcock. The drain on the basin just empties out into another part of the yard that the ducks can't get to. This is very handy especially in the winter. We bring new water in by hand, but dump the old water down the drain so we don't have to unplug the heated buckets or go very far with them. Since this doesn't go to a septic tank, and it is outdoors, there is no chance of getting swamp gas up the drain so there is no need for a trap. A trap would actually be a problem since that would hold water and freeze and make this whole setup useless (and probably broken) in the winter. I did use 2 90 degree elbows together to allow me to set the slope of the drain, but the whole thing is set to flow water fast and not hold any so that it doesn't have a chance to freeze.

Without the sink, we would have to carry the water out of the kennel, around the duck house and toss it over the back fence, so it definitely saves us a lot of work. And since the ducks can walk under it, it takes up no room as far as they're concerned.

thank you for letting me know this. What an awesome idea. You could scrub the water buckets out and fill right from the run and I love the idea about having the waste water be directed elsewhere

 

[Tevyes Dad]

Hello all. I logged in to do may annual profile maintenance and thought I would drop a line. I updated my options since I am not on here very often anymore - TBH, not spending much time in front of the computer at all anymore - always doing something IRL - so all is good

Last summer, we lost Tevye, it was fairly sudden and caught us by surprise. He was everyone's favorite, and we were very sad. Because we keep the yard as clean as we can of screws and such and none of the other ducks were experiencing any issues, I decided not to try to autopsy him - ether he ate some random bad thing, or perhaps had some health issues we wouldn't have known of. I doubted I would find anything that would make us change the way we do things so decided against it.

The flock is will be 8 years old this April (Tella and Ettie are about half a year older) and Latte is the baby who will only be 6 years old in March. They are getting old enough that This will probably start to be a more frequent occurrence. That and they are all starting to show their age. Some have more trouble getting up after a long rest. As someone who has my own knee issues, I can relate. Not quite enough to write off quality of life yet, but we will have to start watching for when the fun of being a duck fades.

We have already made arrangements with a local friend who raises chickens for meat that they will take any healthy, but suffering ducks in the future. We don't mind if someone else eats them at end of life - we enjoy duck, just not ours, with names.

OK, enough Debbie Downer... We will hopefully still have several years to enjoy our flock and will ensure while they are in our care they will be the most spoiled ducks around. They have a long weekend ahead... Time for kiddie pools

 

[Miss Lydia]

Hey there good to see you! So sorry to hear about Tevye, he had a wonderful life with you all.
How about the long weekend with kiddie pool in Montana? Will they be ice skating?