The chickens have really been complaining about their newest residents, the "messy, smelly ducks", and though I think they may be racists, bigots, I gave in to their demands and evicted the ducks this weekend.
I turned the old building next to the coop into a new duck house and fenced yard just for the ducks.
Here's some before pictures. It had been used at one time as a kid's play house. The door was pretty much falling apart but the walls are made like a log cabin, cut and fitted together, built of 4 inch solid cypress boards/logs.
Here it is all cleaned up with addition of hardware cloth nailed to inside lower walls to cover the gaps in boards. I left a few pieces of furniture in case their chicken friends want to visit, which they do each day, and I left a bowl of fresh gardenias as a House Warming gift.
Here are the new residents checking things out.
Here's a view of the duck yard. It's three times larger than the chicken yard next door, has grass, and the best thing is it had a buried pipe with an open end in duck yard and the other end on other side of fence. So I could put their blow-up pool there and dump it each day and it goes down the drain instead of all over yard - which was really making a smelly mess when they were in the chicken yard.
Their chickens friends still come over every day - they just jump the fence and hang out with their duck friends who they like much better now that they have their own place. I think the chickens were just getting a little cranky and complaining because of sleep deprivation. Seems the ducks like to wander around their coop all night quacking and carrying on and the chickens weren't getting enough sleep.
Like they say - "Good fences make Good Neighbors".
I turned the old building next to the coop into a new duck house and fenced yard just for the ducks.
Here's some before pictures. It had been used at one time as a kid's play house. The door was pretty much falling apart but the walls are made like a log cabin, cut and fitted together, built of 4 inch solid cypress boards/logs.
Here it is all cleaned up with addition of hardware cloth nailed to inside lower walls to cover the gaps in boards. I left a few pieces of furniture in case their chicken friends want to visit, which they do each day, and I left a bowl of fresh gardenias as a House Warming gift.
Here are the new residents checking things out.
Here's a view of the duck yard. It's three times larger than the chicken yard next door, has grass, and the best thing is it had a buried pipe with an open end in duck yard and the other end on other side of fence. So I could put their blow-up pool there and dump it each day and it goes down the drain instead of all over yard - which was really making a smelly mess when they were in the chicken yard.
Their chickens friends still come over every day - they just jump the fence and hang out with their duck friends who they like much better now that they have their own place. I think the chickens were just getting a little cranky and complaining because of sleep deprivation. Seems the ducks like to wander around their coop all night quacking and carrying on and the chickens weren't getting enough sleep.
Like they say - "Good fences make Good Neighbors".
