Hi everyone, I just completed a renovation of an existing chicken coop into a duck coop! Housing for ducks seems to be a hot topic around these parts and just wanted to share my experience in creating a home for my 5 week-old ducklings.
Here's the existing structure prior to it being renovated. The building itself measures 10' x ~11':
Here's some profile pictures of the coop after renovations. The SO wanted to keep the actual house within the pen, despite my protests. As you can see, she won, and I built a ramp for the ducks to use to get up to the house. The outside walls of the enclosure we also reinforced as well. Knowing that ducks roost on the ground, we wanted to make sure that they a). had plenty of shelter from the wind/rain/elements and b). wouldn't get attacked by predators reaching through the fence. What we came up with was to enclose two of the sides in plywood, and the other two sides we lined with 1/4 inch welded wire up to 4 feet high. It was expensive, but it's worth it not to lose anybody to raccoons reaching their grubby little hands through the chicken wire that was installed in the old coop. We raised the house up on concrete blocks (they're actually stacked two high but you can only see one because of the extra flooring material we added). You'll also notice that the floor of the coop is now sand. My SO and I worked hard on this part of it. We scraped off all the debris in the old coop, and then set down a layer of landscaping fabric, then a 2-inch layer of pea gravel, followed by another layer of landscaping fabric and then 2 inches of sand. We hoped that this would make for excellent drainage for the coop and would also catch the ducks' poop and make it easy to clean up. In the past week since it's gone in we've had resounding success. We've had several rainstorms and the coop has stayed 95% dry and as long as we go in with the pooper scooper every day and clean out the poop, the entire enclosure stays poop-free and stink-free. We're thrilled that it's worked so well. The only drawback was that we had to haul 18 50 lb. bags of sand and 22 bags of pea gravel from the hardware store in order to cover everything. THAT was a long day.
Detail pic of the ramp:
What you can't really see in this picture is that I shored up a pretty massive gap at the bottom of the door with bricks on the inside. I also added a second latch at the bottom, as the door didn't sit flush with the doorway before and I was worried a raccoon could pry the entry open enough to get inside. I also put a nail in the side board that holds the kitty litter scooper I use to scoop out the ducks' poop, and the small collapsible rake I have to groom the sand.
I built them this "water box" or whatever you want to call it, so that the water and food would fall through the wire and into a container at the bottom and wouldn't get in the sand. For the most part it works really well, I only have to clean out the container at the bottom ever 5 days or so (I probably could go a week if I really wanted to). I added handles so that lifting it would be easier, it's pretty sturdy/heavy so that when the ducks are on top of it, it doesn't wobble.
The first section of the ramp. I glued dowels to the wood so that the ducks would have traction going up and coming down. The ramp is connected to the mid-level by door hinges, so that when I need to clean up under the ramp I can just flip it up. Or if I need to move the whole ramp structure, I can fold the lower ramp "closed" with the mid-level and the whole structure can be picked up and moved to wherever I see fit.
Second section of the ramp and the entry to the duck house. I actually didn't have to create that large opening, which was great. The whole side was a roost box and all I had to do was unscrew the box and the whole side was open. It makes a much nicer, bigger entrance for the ducks than the side door does (seen from other pictures/angles). I put the ramp on hinges so that when I'm cleaning the coop I can hook it up to the roof and get in the back corners much more easily.
Inside of the duck house. I lined it with the remaining straw I had left over from when they were very little babies in my bathtub, and installed a light so that they could have some warmth, as they're still very young and it still gets cold at night here.
Extra pic of their "pond" that's nearby in our yard. They seem to like it quite a bit.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed a look into our renovation! If you've got any questions please let me know and I'll answer to the best of my ability!
Here's the existing structure prior to it being renovated. The building itself measures 10' x ~11':
Here's some profile pictures of the coop after renovations. The SO wanted to keep the actual house within the pen, despite my protests. As you can see, she won, and I built a ramp for the ducks to use to get up to the house. The outside walls of the enclosure we also reinforced as well. Knowing that ducks roost on the ground, we wanted to make sure that they a). had plenty of shelter from the wind/rain/elements and b). wouldn't get attacked by predators reaching through the fence. What we came up with was to enclose two of the sides in plywood, and the other two sides we lined with 1/4 inch welded wire up to 4 feet high. It was expensive, but it's worth it not to lose anybody to raccoons reaching their grubby little hands through the chicken wire that was installed in the old coop. We raised the house up on concrete blocks (they're actually stacked two high but you can only see one because of the extra flooring material we added). You'll also notice that the floor of the coop is now sand. My SO and I worked hard on this part of it. We scraped off all the debris in the old coop, and then set down a layer of landscaping fabric, then a 2-inch layer of pea gravel, followed by another layer of landscaping fabric and then 2 inches of sand. We hoped that this would make for excellent drainage for the coop and would also catch the ducks' poop and make it easy to clean up. In the past week since it's gone in we've had resounding success. We've had several rainstorms and the coop has stayed 95% dry and as long as we go in with the pooper scooper every day and clean out the poop, the entire enclosure stays poop-free and stink-free. We're thrilled that it's worked so well. The only drawback was that we had to haul 18 50 lb. bags of sand and 22 bags of pea gravel from the hardware store in order to cover everything. THAT was a long day.
Detail pic of the ramp:
What you can't really see in this picture is that I shored up a pretty massive gap at the bottom of the door with bricks on the inside. I also added a second latch at the bottom, as the door didn't sit flush with the doorway before and I was worried a raccoon could pry the entry open enough to get inside. I also put a nail in the side board that holds the kitty litter scooper I use to scoop out the ducks' poop, and the small collapsible rake I have to groom the sand.
I built them this "water box" or whatever you want to call it, so that the water and food would fall through the wire and into a container at the bottom and wouldn't get in the sand. For the most part it works really well, I only have to clean out the container at the bottom ever 5 days or so (I probably could go a week if I really wanted to). I added handles so that lifting it would be easier, it's pretty sturdy/heavy so that when the ducks are on top of it, it doesn't wobble.
The first section of the ramp. I glued dowels to the wood so that the ducks would have traction going up and coming down. The ramp is connected to the mid-level by door hinges, so that when I need to clean up under the ramp I can just flip it up. Or if I need to move the whole ramp structure, I can fold the lower ramp "closed" with the mid-level and the whole structure can be picked up and moved to wherever I see fit.
Second section of the ramp and the entry to the duck house. I actually didn't have to create that large opening, which was great. The whole side was a roost box and all I had to do was unscrew the box and the whole side was open. It makes a much nicer, bigger entrance for the ducks than the side door does (seen from other pictures/angles). I put the ramp on hinges so that when I'm cleaning the coop I can hook it up to the roof and get in the back corners much more easily.
Inside of the duck house. I lined it with the remaining straw I had left over from when they were very little babies in my bathtub, and installed a light so that they could have some warmth, as they're still very young and it still gets cold at night here.
Extra pic of their "pond" that's nearby in our yard. They seem to like it quite a bit.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed a look into our renovation! If you've got any questions please let me know and I'll answer to the best of my ability!
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