We had an old wood deck taken up, so I used the joists, laying them on the bare ground as just that,joists and then I placed the decking on top of those joists. I am only using a kiddie pool for my three runners, so I simply drilled out a hole in the bottom of the kiddie pool and got a drain plug to keep the hole plugged. Under the pool I dug a big hole, and of course I also left a hole in the decking, so once the water gets nasty, smply pull the plug out, the water drains into the hole, and put the plug into the pool and fill up once again. It is easy and the wooden decking is very easy to hose off. I did keep the boards closer together than normal, so their little feet won't get caught in any spaces. I have it all set up in my large chicken run, soo they are all together, but I have a fenced area where the ducks have their little pool so the hens don't have to put up with the muck. It seems to work great, and it was all of $0.87, because of the drain plug, all the other materials were scrap from our yard.
kycklingmamma and now also ankmamma
Fancie217, your set up is absolutely beautiful, I wish I had that for my girls as well.