Building a pond and a duck aviary. Anyone have experience in this?

[Miizki]

I've always had this dream to one day build an aviary. Well now I have a chance to build one and I want it to be the best I can possibly make it. I love muscovies so that's what will be housed inside. So far the measurments are around 12' long x 7' wide x 6' tall.

I want to build a pond inside. I don't want stagnant water so I want the water to cirulate and clean itself. Can I have fish inside? (assumig the ducks don't eat them all?) how do I make a pond the cheapest I can? I was thinking dig it to how I want it to look with a waterfall to help circulate water. And put like a heavyduty tarp type stuff in the bottom with big rocks to surround and hold down the tarp. Then I can put small pebbles in the bottom of the pond which won't be very deep.Maybe a foot or two.

I was going to make it all out of metal (by welding and such) to make a zoo like aviary. I was going to make it around a tree but how could I go about doing that?

What kind of plants I could put in the aviary to make it beautiful and green but the ducks won't completely ruin and is safe for them? I live in Arizona so the temps get hot in the summer

Pond
I have two pond designs. Which one would be better?

First Design
Ok its kind of hard to explain but the vertical line is going to be plywood (in the corner of the aviary) so one corner will be a hill, and then a pump or something to make a waterfall work. Then if I want to drain the entire thing, I can turn the faucet on the other pipe and drain all the water to start fresh. Will this work? What do I need to get so this will work?

Second Design
OK so this is a rough outline of how I am doing the drainage system. There will be a pipe leading out of the pond and it is angled so that when I need to drain the pond, everything will drain out. I was thinking about using a pvc pipe with a facet thing on the end so that I can stop it and start the drainage whenever I want. And a pond liner for the pond, but how will I attach the two together?

 

[SandyK]

I've had ducks and geese before, they are very messy in a pond. We had a large 12x9 maybe fiberglass preformed pond which was nice because we could put a drain in it. Now we have a 1,700 gallon koi pond with the flexible liner. It is a pain, always a leak somewhere. I've spend so much money having our pond people come out looking for where the leak may be for me. We have had this one for a while now, maybe time for a new liner. I hate the thought. The ducks will not allow vegetation in the pond unless it's huge I would think. They love digging in the mud.

 

[slightlyscrambled]

There is a thread going on right now about ponds and aviaries, you should check it out!! Some really nice set ups.

 

[Pidgey104]

muscovys eat fish ..

 

[Miizki]

Ok so what type of plants will be able to be kept in the enclosure? I want the cage to be beautiful and green

 

[Miizki]

I would like to find a way to make it as clean as possible. That I would only have to completely drain every couple weeks or so. Does that mean I need a pump? I have no idea about ponds and how to make them work with a filtration system.

 

[laughaha]

That's gonna have to be a really big pond to only have to drain it every couple of weeks. I have two geese (think 4-6 ducks) and I have to clean their kiddie pool (the largest rigid plastic one I could find) daily as they foul it up incredibly fast. I would suggest filtration system designed for koi as they can foul water pretty quick too. They really aren't that hard to set up and maintain......

 

[HottentotTeal]

Quote:
Your best bet would be to post or search in the Duck section, but a few people recommended to me that Pampas or Muhly grass would be good. I think Monkey grass (forgot what the real name for it is) would be fine too.




I have a picture of a pot of Muhly grass that I bought. I don't remember which species it is.

It's in my thread here on the last pic in Page 5 in the small dark green pot:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=326040&p=5


Here is a link to a list of the Muhlys on Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhlenbergia


The other thing to note is that a majority of posts I have read indicate that ducks will try to eat just about everything you put in there, especially if it's small and barely sprouting. (even grass)

The grasses I want to put in are going to be more like cover plants for them, so hopefully they will use it as shade and hidings spots, rather than food.