Can't beat the heat!

[perchie.girl]

Oh, it's hard for a poor widdle house duck. Wobbles n' Bean are having such a tough time this summer! My house faces west and is full of picture windows, so we're pretty much blasted by the sun during its peak hours.

Can't spend all day at the lake 'cuz I got things to do, can't keep them diaperless to go in and out of the tub whenever they want for obvious reasons, can't put ice cubes in their water 'cuz Bean is terrified of 'em.

Any house duck (or housepet owners in general) having woes keeping your animal children cool during this infernal heat wave?

where do you keep them when they are diaperless?

IN that area you could freeze a whole pan of water.... then set their water bucket on top. Or for the bucket you also could stick iit inside another bigger bucket and fill that with ice cubes....

I have had a conversation with a man here on BYC that keeps ducks and geese in Death Valley.... Temps there get upwards to 140 degrees... not house pets but pets none the less. He shades their area big time and puts carpet out there and uses drip irrigation to keep the carpet wet so they dont burn their feed.


I choose not to have water fowl where I am.... at least the kind that need to swim.... I cant afford the water. meaning my well barely produces enough drinking water for poultry horse goats and myself for normal water needs bath, laundry... But if I run the water longer than fifteen or twenty minutes the well goes dry... and shuts down.

my place is in the high desert near Mexico we dont get nearly as hot... only about 105-110... But If I had ducks like Runners or Muscovy and they looked stressed, I would bring them into my green house room which looks like a big covered patio. where I could wet some carpet for them. and even provide a little swamp cooler if they needed it... they make them about the size of a printer stand... but the green house room used to be an actual green house and the floor has a couple of drains.

deb

 

[Amykins]

Doesn't the carpet drip thing promote mold growth, though? Aspergillosis can be deadly to duckies! As for where they stay undiapered, I keep them either downstairs on the hardwood or in their pens that they sleep in at night. I'm currently saving up to build out a DIY indoor run for them so they have more space. Bean is still kinda terrified of ice cubes, so I don't know how well she'd take to a whole pan of the stuff, LOL!

 

[Amykins]

P.S. Hey, you're in SD! I was born and raised in Orange County, I kinda miss it sometimes. If I could afford it I'd totally move to San Diego. But I can't.

 

[perchie.girl]

Doesn't the carpet drip thing promote mold growth, though? Aspergillosis can be deadly to duckies! As for where they stay undiapered, I keep them either downstairs on the hardwood or in their pens that they sleep in at night. I'm currently saving up to build out a DIY indoor run for them so they have more space. Bean is still kinda terrified of ice cubes, so I don't know how well she'd take to a whole pan of the stuff, LOL!

since I dont know your climate I dont know how humid it is there. Here that moisture will be dry within an hour or two. Put the pan inside the bigger pan and line the bigger pan with ice cubes... then cover them with a rolled up towel or something the ice will not be inside the drinking water....

 

[perchie.girl]

P.S. Hey, you're in SD! I was born and raised in Orange County, I kinda miss it sometimes. If I could afford it I'd totally move to San Diego. But I can't.

I was born in San Bernardino and lived my first five years in Colton.... Whole family is spread around there .... WE moved from there to Roswell NM in 1960 Dad was building missile silos then.... After that job ws done we moved to Las Vegas.... He was designing and building tools for testing on the atomic test sites. When that job ws over we moved to San Diego...

Been here since 1967... Its crazy expensive both for property and just cost of living stuff. I got lucky and found a place with a house up in the high desert when my son was about fifteen. I have eighteen acres...

Believe me if you have water dont move here.... the water tables have dropped a hundred feet. If they go any further I will have to rehome my horse because I wont be able to keep her water tub full. The drought is killing trees... You know the hard to kill kind like Eucalyptus...

I have always said lawns dont belong here... for almost fifty years now... Now they are pulling them out left and right...

For what its worth the damp surface is temporary.... till your heat wave subsides.

But there are other things you can do.... maybe just getting them out of the house and in an enclosure outside where they can regulate their own temperature. If you dont have a yard even out on the patio. One of the things we do for the chickens is set out a childrens swimming pool with bricks in it .... and fill that up to almost the tops of the bricks. Evaporation chills the bricks down and the chikens happily walk around on them.

Good luck.

deb

 

[Amykins]

since I dont know your climate I dont know how humid it is there. Here that moisture will be dry within an hour or two. Put the pan inside the bigger pan and line the bigger pan with ice cubes... then cover them with a rolled up towel or something the ice will not be inside the drinking water....

I live in Seattle now, so fighting black mold is a constant struggle. :/