2019 Spring Ducklings are here!

[SailorNoMore]

@Magnolia Ducks Have you named them yet?

Yes, they are Rose Bud, Enforcer, Blue Jay, Graduate. I have a question for you? How do you water your ducks so that you are able to leave for an overnight trip? We have a two day event to attend in August if we can figure out how to water them. I increased the size of their waterer to 2 1/2 gallons, by substituting the cats waterer for their normal 1 gallon poultry waterer to see if that would hold them. NO! they emptied about 2 gallons out overnight and just made a larger mess in their brooder.

 

[Texag87]

@Magnolia Ducks Have you named them yet?

Yes, they are Rose Bud, Enforcer, Blue Jay, Graduate. I have a question for you? How do you water your ducks so that you are able to leave for an overnight trip? We have a two day event to attend in August if we can figure out how to water them. I increased the size of their waterer to 2 1/2 gallons, by substituting the cats waterer for their normal 1 gallon poultry waterer to see if that would hold them. NO! they emptied about 2 gallons out overnight and just made a larger mess in their brooder.

our 5 go through a 5 gallon waterer every night. They almost empty it each day too when they have pool access .

 

[SailorNoMore]

WannaBeHillBilly: I don't know when you have to leave, but there may be a little time to DIY something.
Facing a similar problem with my ducks: Having a cr@ppy job which forces me to leave home for days, a muddy yard, bad cell phone coverage and a wife that i don't want to find injured in the yard (or worse) when i come back home, i am currently building a maintenance free duck-waterer. This is the idea:

I have the PVC pipe cut-out, installed the float valve and the drain-pipe, i don't know exactly how to fit in the pipe-heater cable and i need something to hold the pipe and lift it from the ground. With chickens, you may be able to leave the drain-pipe out of the picture, my idea was to let it drip (therefore the valve), so that the food-muck that the duck produce will be washed out permanently.
The float-valve with garden-hose adapter was $13 on eBay, the pipe heating cable was $17, also on eBay. The valve was $6 at the hardware store, the knee was $2, the pipes were left here by the previous property owner. A bit elbow grease and your birds have a free drink day & night.
This is where i am at the moment:
I hope that helps.

@WannaBeHillBilly You wrote this back in Dec 2018, I just found this today looking for a way to leave the ducks alone for a weekend event coming up in August. Your Instructions and photos were very good, so I feel that I can follow them. My question is what lessons have you learned since writing the original post?

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Tough one! - The more water they have, the more they use to make a mess, especially when they get bored. I built a waterer with a float valve out of a PVC-pipe with Muck-Release pipe controlled by a Ball-Valve.
It works great to supply water, but i have to move it around permanently to prevent the ducks from burying the whole thing in a duck-made swamp.
I should probably put that into an article…

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

@SailorNoMore - Surprise! You found my old post! I was searching for it and couldn't find it.
As i wrote before: It works, great but also provides the ducks with enough water to create their private swamp. I need to repair the silcock close to the ducks house and try to put the waterer into their living/dining room on the wooden floor so that any spilled water can drain away.

 

[SailorNoMore]

@WannaBeHillBilly Thank you I appreciate the original post and this lessons learned.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Oh, i gave up on that pipe-heater cable: The inside of the PVC-Pipe needs to be as smooth as possible so that the duck-muck can float away.

 

[SailorNoMore]

@WannaBeHillBilly Your original post was in the article:
Needing to leave, caretaker backed out..
of Dec 2018.

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

@SailorNoMore I use large plastic mixing bowls from the dollar store. The bigger the better. They can't turn them over though the sometimes get in and splash around. They all at a have water when I change them ☝ a day. Icky water but water none the less. If I was not gone more than two nights I think they would make it fine with two or three of theese. I will take a picture later when I go up to try to wrap my Angel wing goose again sigh.

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

Also, I ordered Mazuri waterfowl starter from my local feed store. It wont be in till next Thursday but I don't know how they don't expire from the smell of the flock raiser. Right now they are hot as we have double duck yoga ,both legs back and webbies up.