I am getting three female ducklings next week. I’ve raised ducks before as a child/teenager, but my mom did most the logistics for housing! They will be inside for a few months but we’re trying to design their coop/run. We live in a central California neighborhood with a small backyard and we’re renting. My husband is leaning towards something similar to what’s pictured below, which would literally take up like half our grass area. but I have a couple questions. And I’m kind of just thinking out loud here....
1. In the pictures below, I don’t like the idea of covering it entirely like in the first picture. The one that’s covered entirely doesn’t have a coop inside it...if I covered half of it, would we still need a some sort of covered coop/house?
2. I was originally planning on putting it on grass but after reading a few threads for duck housing, I’m now considering putting it on this huge concrete area we have in our back yard. But since we’re renting, we have to consider damage. We’re not too concerned about killing the grass, but what would the concrete look like after a couple years of ducks living on it? Would we be able to pressure wash it like new?
With daily spraying it off into a fairly small grass area, would my grass get nasty?
3. the concrete area we have isn’t like...sidewalk concrete. It’s more of a smooth, almost slippery when wet concrete...almost decorative. (I don’t know anything about concrete, so sorry if I sound like an idiot). After a quick google search I’m thinking it’s stamped concrete. Will that be acceptable for ducks to live on as far as foot and leg health?
4. We also have an unused planter area of dirt that’s fairly small, about 5x6 ft. (Third picture. Sorry it’s blurry, you get the idea though). Could that area be used for the coop/run? (if we move the rocks). Obviously it would be smaller than the original idea. Would I need to do a deep litter on it? Or just use the dirt there? Would it be big enough for 3 ducks? I’m thinking it would be about 30sq feet, and we’d need to put a coop inside it. We could let them out in our fenced back yard a lot of the time, but we have lots of stray cats in our neighborhood and I’m a busy mom...there could be full days where they’re in the pen cuz I’m out running errands.
Sorry for all the questions! Any and all help is appreciated!
1. In the pictures below, I don’t like the idea of covering it entirely like in the first picture. The one that’s covered entirely doesn’t have a coop inside it...if I covered half of it, would we still need a some sort of covered coop/house?
2. I was originally planning on putting it on grass but after reading a few threads for duck housing, I’m now considering putting it on this huge concrete area we have in our back yard. But since we’re renting, we have to consider damage. We’re not too concerned about killing the grass, but what would the concrete look like after a couple years of ducks living on it? Would we be able to pressure wash it like new?
With daily spraying it off into a fairly small grass area, would my grass get nasty?
3. the concrete area we have isn’t like...sidewalk concrete. It’s more of a smooth, almost slippery when wet concrete...almost decorative. (I don’t know anything about concrete, so sorry if I sound like an idiot). After a quick google search I’m thinking it’s stamped concrete. Will that be acceptable for ducks to live on as far as foot and leg health?
4. We also have an unused planter area of dirt that’s fairly small, about 5x6 ft. (Third picture. Sorry it’s blurry, you get the idea though). Could that area be used for the coop/run? (if we move the rocks). Obviously it would be smaller than the original idea. Would I need to do a deep litter on it? Or just use the dirt there? Would it be big enough for 3 ducks? I’m thinking it would be about 30sq feet, and we’d need to put a coop inside it. We could let them out in our fenced back yard a lot of the time, but we have lots of stray cats in our neighborhood and I’m a busy mom...there could be full days where they’re in the pen cuz I’m out running errands.
Sorry for all the questions! Any and all help is appreciated!
