aviary size?

[dainironfoot]

Hi guys! I've asked a similar question before but the size of my future aviary keeps changing so I just want to make sure I won't be crowding too many ducks into one area. The size that I am thinking about building is 8X36. About one-third of it will be pond(2 ft. deep). It fits perfect at the end of the garden. How many pairs of ducks could I comfortably fit in there? I am hoping to get two pair of mandarins, a pair of wood ducks and someday down the road a pair of hooded mergansers. Is that enough room for 4 pairs? The pen will be eight feet high. Thanks so much for the advice!

-Tony

 

[jbourget]

of course thats plenty of room....and for their babies for many years

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

Tony, that's good for them and a couple more but not too many. Stay with the smaller species and you'll be fine, teals and shovelers, bahama pintail, smaller docile stuff like that.

Mine were all 50 x 150 or 50 x 200. Those could hold a couple hundred easy.
I'd say 8-10 pair would do fine.

One thing I want to point out though.

Try to make it more than 8 feet wide and here's why. These type of ducks are captive raised, but are still pretty flighty at times. Especially mandarins and wood ducks, they are the worst of all of them. If you walk slowly threw the pen and dont act like you are pushing them, they just walk the other way and do problems arise. Problem with an 8 footer is you are too close to them at any given time that direction, they'll keep walking to the end til they feel trapped and start to freak out.

Just a suggestion, space may not permit it, but if it does, I'd try to double the width.

Pond size sounds perfect. a foot will do in depth BUT with species like mergansers, the added depth is a plus for them. If you arent familiar with merganser care, you need to read up a bit on them first, they are a bit different dietary wise than most ducks due to their fish diet in the wild.

I have a thread in the duck section about all of them if you havent seen it, I d advise reading threw the first 7-8 pages. It'll help you a lot if you are totally new to it.

It's the migratory and ornamental waterfowl thread and it located in the duck "sticky" section at the top of that page.

Good luck, you'll love them

 

[Dr. Todd]

Less is more when it comes to wild species.

If you cram them in they're more likely to come down with ailments and diseases than if you only keep a few pairs with plenty of space. You'll also see less propensity for breeding and find that a bunch of ducks means changing the water constantly whereas keeping only a few pairs means you can actually sit and enjoy the birds without having to constantly mess with draining and refilling a pool.

Start small, put a pair or two in there and see how it goes.

 

[dainironfoot]

Wow! Thanx for the great ideas and advice guys. BBB.... I will look into moving a few of my raised garden beds around and see if I can get maybe twelve feet wide for the ducks instead of eight. Thanx again guys, I really appreciate it.

-Tony