We have seven silver Appleyard ducks that are about 7+ months old. We are in Maine, so we have to think about cold and snow. The duckhouse is elevated and is 4'x8'. The attached run is covered and is 16'x8'. About one-quarter of the run is pavers over pea gravel, and it's where their pond/water is. The rest of the run is covered in straw. We use the deep litter method in the duckhouse with pine shavings and straw in the nesting spots. There are four windows, which have sliding acrylic. During the winter, we are stacking hay bales around the run beneath the duckhouse, and that has become their favorite spot.
Here's a picture as we were finishing the shakes:
It's double wall construction but not insulated. Here's the other side when we started stacking the hay bales around the bottom of the run under the house:
We have not finished trimming out the door, but we are very happy with our door design. The two top doors swing out for collecting eggs, adding shavings and feeding treats. The bottom door drops down for easy clean out...we just drive up the tractor, load the bucket and drive it the 20 feet to the compost bins.
We're working on a rainwater collection system, but that's on hold until next spring.
And here's the view from the run side:
One final note: we spent a lot of time thinking about where we would site the duckhouse. Our thinking was to have it adjacent to the compost for easy muck-outs and a single destination for kitchen scraps to be split between ducks and compost.
We also wanted a small fenced area outside of the run where they can be easily contained but have more foraging access. That area has direct access to our vegetable garden through a gate, which is essential since we count on them helping with slugs and snails in the garden. They also have another gate that opens onto a larger pasture of foraging space and allows them to forage the perimeter of the garden catching slugs and snails before they get in.
Finally, on the downhill side of the duckhouse, we planted comfrey, which does a great job of capturing nutrients found deep in the soil and bringing them to the surface in a form that is seemingly infinitely useful. Again, the comfrey's proximity to the compost bin is intentional, as it is a great bioactivator.
You can see our full build thread here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/our-maine-duck-house.1177775/
Good luck, and have fun with it!!!
