What do you wish you'd done differently with your duck housing?

[LeannS]

So now that it is winter, I'm learning a lot about duck pen management. One of my biggest problems is that the water they spill out of their 5 gal turns into a frozen cascade because of the cold temperatures. So it stays fluid because of the heater under it, but the water they squirt out the sides of their bills, as well as what they spill with their 'vigorous' drinking, becomes like a lava flow, that instantly freezes. Then, it becomes a slippery slope that they slide on when they try to drink. Lately they have taken to just standing in their food dish while they drink so the footing is more stable!!

Crazy! I will have to put some drainage under my food and water section in the summer when I can. I would like to put in an iron grate similar to what is used outside of a door in a deck or porch, to drain water around the doorway.

I'm also finding that poop freezes too, so on the cold days I don't have to worry so much about them getting filthy because the poop is all frozen.

I"ve been able to keep their 110 gal tub going with a floater heating unit. The tub is surrounded by rocks and sand so the mess isn't too bad on that side of the cage.

They love going in their night hut on the really cold nights. There is a heat lamp in there. I have hay and wood shavings in it. The heat also keeps the eggs from freezing the 0-10 degree nights.

I am getting educated also had ducks for 3 months and they have been getting room service. So glad to get them out side for the days and they still have a mess. But I am learning from all the duck owners, tips and tricks to get around the problem, some what. Digging a hole and having a grate over it then the water bucket., to catch the water mess. the water would have a chance to soak in the ground. But now I have started not to feed them at night. I still have their clean water available to them but with no feed in there, ,they would have less reason to be using water as much.

 

[petcrazy]

This is the coop I just built. Still finding things that need changing, but so far it's great and critter proof.

 

[wondernurse]

This is our starter pen for our young ducks. (Pekings) it's currently 6x12 with a small tool shed laid on it's side for nesting and filled with shavings. It also has a large tarp over it to protect from heat and rain on one side and chicken wire over the rest to keep predators at bay. Kiddie pool for now. Plans to expand by 12 foot due to adding 2 more birds and put in concrete pool with pump

 

[Ratbird]

the night pens gahhh

( mine free range during the day)

we left the floors of the pens as grass and after a week the floors were turned to mud.12 years later of letting it air out and grow grass back when it got dirty and going through different techniques of try to keep it clean we are putting the floors as concrete and using wood shaveing for bedding so when the floors are dirty we just rake the shavings away and spray off the concrete

That’s exactly what we have. Pine shavings on concrete and free rage during the day. We have 11 Pekins, 4 Rouens and 3 magpie ducks. All sleep according to their family groups but free range together during the day.
They are messy creatures and with winter and so much rain and them doing what they do, we have mud everywhere. I can’t handle another winter of the mud so come summer I’m putting large sized gravel down everywhere where they bather etc followed by smaller gravel on top. Hopefully that will cut down the mud for next winter.
I think with most things, it’s a process that you tweak as you go.

 

[Ratbird]

I tried the horse stall mats once, and let me tell you, once was enough !!! Have you ever tried to lift one of those things by yourself? Mission Impossible if there ever was one. They're like trying to move a small car !!! So I got the bright idea of cutting it half. Thought it'd be easier to haul around. And it was. It was like trying to haul around one half of a small car !!! They're not only heavy, they're awkward and cumbersome too. They don't do anything as far as helping with drainage IMO and since they're made with a type of rubber, if you nick it with a hoe or anything, your ducks will be drawn to that particular spot like ducks to a mud puddle, until they find a way to turn that little nick into another heinous hole in which they can play. On a positive note, they're much easier to lift when they're in a thousand little pieces !!! Which is exactly what it turned into once my geese got a hold of it. As for using any sort of lumber or lumber like material for the floor, my honest opinion is...don't !!! Even if you coat that thing with enough John Deere green or Rustoleum Red, it's still going to absorb, and more importantly, retain, just about every other drop of water that comes across it's path and once it's inside the wood, the only way to get rid of it is to remove it. The wood, that is...no other way around it that I'm aware of. You just have to pull it up, tear it down or light the thing on fire. Case closed. Time to rebuild. Well, before everyone writes me off as a Debbie Downer,
I would like to say that there does happen to be an option that I tend to favor and that is cement. Yep, It's the easiest thing I've found to clean, just hose it off when you hose your ducks off...lol !!! Just kidding. But really, it is the best flooring I've found and believe me, I've think I've just about tried them all...from having river rock hauled in to lay over the 3 cubic feet of sand that I had hauled in just before that only to have to sandwich some heavy duty landscape cloth in between the two of them, so I do speak from some experience. Now it could be that I just had a 'bad experience' with every single one I tried before I tried concrete, but those aren't even odds a loan shark would support so I'm not thinking that's the case. So please don't
saddle me with any expensive amenities for my dear ole' ducklings and ducks. Nope. Just throw me a bag of that $2.90 Quikrete, and I'll show you how to get down to doing some work.

-kim-

P.S. the opinions expressed herein are just that...opinions. They are not rules for which to go by when deciding what works best for you. They're only written to show the misfortune that I've encountered with these particular construction ideas. You may find that for your particular setup they work like a charm. They just didn't work for me, that all I'm trying to say.

We have 2 floorings and both are awesome. Concrete in one coop and we tiled the wood floor on the other. We got super cheap tiles from the local reused stuff place and slapped those tiles down. Easier to clean even than concrete. Both are great.

 

[Ratbird]

I have a jumbo pekin that is ten weeks old. I also have 2 month old Canada geese and they almost seem the same size! Anyway, i don't know if this pekin is male or female I previously had thought male but since a new male Cayuga has been added into the flock this pekin has been getting mated with non stop! This Cayuga does nothing but eat drink sleep and mate. It's endless, it was so aggressive that it drown its last mate. My pekin is getting skinnier and hides a lot now. The pekin is such a beautiful duck and it honestly loves people more than any of my ducks. What do I do? I'm ready to shoot the Cayuga and find out what Cayuga duck tastes like.

Yeah I’d find out what Cayuga tastes like lol. Poor jumbo Pekin. We have 11 jumbo Pekins and although 3 are boys, all the girls are obsessed with the Rouen drake. They prostrate themselves in front of him and everything.

can’t have a drake damaging and scaring the girls. And yes the Pekins seem way more friendly than the other duck breeds.

 

[jinscore]

This is the coop I just built. Still finding things that need changing, but so far it's great and critter proof.

Hello! This is great! Would you mind sharing what length pvc you used?

 

[TheDreamwalker83]

This is the coop I just built. Still finding things that need changing, but so far it's great and critter proof.

 

[Charesegymnast]

This is the coop I just built. Still finding things that need changing, but so far it's great and critter proof.

Can I get your build plans? I would love to do something like this for mine

 

[3bird]

The best thing we did was to build an attached, predator proof, covered run. If we had it to do over again, we would have planned better for being able to separate birds while keeping them together.