Building home!

[cheezenkwackers]

CarleeAnn is right. How old are they? They go through a stage around a couple of weeks old when they are scared of everything. Some on here call it the gingerbread man phase (run, run). They get over it with time, treats, and patience. Mine have never liked to be held but they tolerate it if I have to catch one. They do run to me to eat treats out of my hand and they like to sit near me. If you have a brooder that they can see out the sides and you can reach in from the side, it seems to help. I think when we reach in from the top we are too much like a predator and it triggers their prey reflex to flee.
At different times, I give mine lettuce, greens, dandelions, thawed peas, chopped tomatoes, watermelon, thawed corn, earthworms and of course, meal worms. I think they love me but they probably just think, "Yeah, here comes the ice cream truck!" They can be picky when you first give them a new food. Put it in their water. They love to swim and dine or fish it out of their water dish. Soon they will be hooked and take it from you.

 

[Mrichard0930]

Looking for help/ideas to keep my ducks safe! I have 5 ducklings right now in my detached garage in a nice big pen. They are khaki cambells! I am new to parenting any type of bird and want to make sure these guys are safe! I am building a new home for them once they outgrow the pen. I have nice size pond in my backyard for them to play in. I have had them out on my lawn to get them used to the freedom but only under close watch. So I guess I'm looking for help on location of their new home! Should I make the coop on a raft and anchor it in the middle of the pond to keep safe from predators but still accessible as they please to come and go? And deal with the hassle of cleaning, Or should there home be on the dry maybe right close up to my garage? If so, how do I train them to get into their coop every night for lock up? I was hoping to let them have free range of my yard during the day but what is the procedure come dusk time!? Once they get into my pond they arnt going to wanna come out!! Also what size coop would you recommend, for my 5 ducks?? Thank you so much for any help! It is very appreciated!

Hello we had free range ducks and a wonderful house and pen built for our two ducks. We had a 15x15 pen caged in with posts and chicken wire and a door then inside that a 4x4 box that locked up for night time. I would recommend on land because as someone mentioned they will have many predators. Make sure you run chicken wire of some sort around whatever you build. I used garden stakes to make sure no chicken wire had gaps of holes for predators. For the box We used Free pallets made a box making sure the wood was on the bottom as well because some predators can dig. Weasels can get in small cracks so we inspected to make sure there were no holes. We lefts openings for ventilation’s mainly up top but chicken wire still blocked.The roof lifted off to get their eggs. I added which I highly recommend night guard lights and a motion sensor light pointing in each four directions. Our ducks were safe in their homemade house for two years. They had a huge pool no pond. We had 7acres of Free ranging they loved. Like someone said they love routine and after no time they would come back to their house without even needing calling by dusk. I always said time to go night night every night so they were easy to follow the leader into the box house to be locked up. Our babysitters found it hilarious that they went right in. Now I speak past tense because I want to also mention the free ranging risks and offer advice. A month ago our pair of Pekins were attacked and killed we think from a fisher. It was before dusk! My plan for our future hatch is to not allow the 7 am-730 pm free ranging sun went down at 830 yet 7-730 was when it happened. So I’d recommend having a pen like we did for that time from right before dusk to dark. So they can still be out but safely. Our ducks slept in th cage box from 10pm-7 am because I that was our schedule. Good luck on your house building. I realized after what happened to me how much their lives really depend on us keeping them safe I knew it before but I really know it now so just take the time to build their litttle safe haven.

 

[Acampkev]

Are they super smelly and messy? I was considering building it closer to my house but curious if it will be an issue!

 

[Acampkev]

Also, what should the dimensions roughly be for my 5 khaki cambells?

 

[llombardo]

I have five Khakis but I do not have a pond, only pools, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I built a 12ft by 4ft screened run when they were little. I started out by walking them from the brooder in the garage to the screened run in return for thawed frozen peas. In the run was their pool and I let them play for several hours, gradually increasing the time. When it was time, I walked them back to the garage in exchange for meal worms. When they were older and it was time to be outside permanently, I attached a 4ft by 3ft house to the run (probably should have made it bigger) and moved them outside. Then, when I was home after work, I let them free range, but still called them back in with meal worms at night and locked them in their house. At about six months I started leaving their house door open to the screened run and only locked them in the run at night, they free range all day in my fenced yard. I say all this because I think you should build the run by your house and put them in at night if you want them to be around for very long. I have several students (I teach high school) who have had ducks with floating houses and they are constantly getting more to replace those lost. Fox are smart and ducks are not!
My ducks are currently waiting at the door to be put to bed and get their meal worms (they are two years old)! Hopefully someone with a pond will weigh in.
View attachment 1390087

I have a question. So they say that a duck should have water whenever it eats. If giving treats to get them in the house where I will assume water isn't because that would be a huge mess, how do you make sure they wash the meal works down?

 

[cheezenkwackers]

I have a question. So they say that a duck should have water whenever it eats. If giving treats to get them in the house where I will assume water isn't because that would be a huge mess, how do you make sure they wash the meal works down?

I did keep water in the house in a container they could only get their head in but yes it was more work to clean. That is why I switched to letting them stay in the screened run with the door open to the house when they got older. They sleep in the house but come out into the covered, penned area to eat and drink during the night -right side of picture.

Side view of the house open for egg collecting (in winter I add the heavy brown tarp).

 

[Mrichard0930]

Are they super smelly and messy? I was considering building it closer to my house but curious if it will be an issue!

Nope I never thought my ducks smells ever they’re very clean. The only smell I didn’t like was when their food gets wet it’s a weird smell so we stopped that from happening right away by getting a bucket at Lowe’s drilling a hole big enough for heads to comfortably go in and put a short pvc pipe so easy for cleaning and keeping their food supplied.

 

[Dr.Dale]

I did keep water in the house in a container they could only get their head in

Could you post a close up of this? I am looking for something that they can only get their head in, but is still deep enough to clean their nostrils etc

 

[CarleeAnn]

I have a question. So they say that a duck should have water whenever it eats. If giving treats to get them in the house where I will assume water isn't because that would be a huge mess, how do you make sure they wash the meal works down?

I personally don’t give my ducks treats at night for that reason, but my husband likes to bring a large glass cup of water outside with him and give them some treats just to be able and see their heads in the cup drinking...

 

[CarleeAnn]

Are they super smelly and messy? I was considering building it closer to my house but curious if it will be an issue!

If you clean it or just have the proper setup it shouldn’t smell- at least not so much you would be bothered by it from your house!