Duck house and pond

[thetruthpays]

Hello everyone let me just say that I am new to this thread. And I am looking forward to hearing everyone's ideas as well as reading your post. So let me get to it. I have 6 ducks and many chickens. However I would like for my ducks to have their own house and pond area just for them. We have already started digging the pond one side is 4 ft deep and the rest of it is about 1st deep as we didn't get a chance to finish digging due to all the rain. He's my dilemma. I want the pond to be natural as it is in natural so I really want a Natural pond that blends in with the normal land and to not look as if it was just thrown there. I am wondering if I can use a pump and filter with no liner because I want to keep it as clean as possible just want to do it right the first time around so any ideas you have would be appreciated. Right now it is very muddy looking because we were trying to get dirt out while it is full. #badidea lol. Also they will not stay out of it. I guess they like the muddy mess. Thanks for reading this looking forward to ideas and photos. I have posted a few photos of mine.

 

[PD-Riverman]

Hello everyone let me just say that I am new to this thread. And I am looking forward to hearing everyone's ideas as well as reading your post. So let me get to it. I have 6 ducks and many chickens. However I would like for my ducks to have their own house and pond area just for them. We have already started digging the pond one side is 4 ft deep and the rest of it is about 1st deep as we didn't get a chance to finish digging due to all the rain. He's my dilemma. I want the pond to be natural as it is in natural so I really want a Natural pond that blends in with the normal land and to not look as if it was just thrown there. I am wondering if I can use a pump and filter with no liner because I want to keep it as clean as possible just want to do it right the first time around so any ideas you have would be appreciated. Right now it is very muddy looking because we were trying to get dirt out while it is full. #badidea lol. Also they will not stay out of it. I guess they like the muddy mess. Thanks for reading this looking forward to ideas and photos. I have posted a few photos of mine.

Welcome. That duck house will probably be a waist of time and money----mine would never stay in a coop unless I throwed food in it and locked them in after they all got in to eat. I never seen a "clean" duck pond----the cleaner you try to keep it the more they will try to mess it up LOL.

 

[thetruthpays]

Thank you for welcoming me and for your response. The duck house is not going to cost me anything but time. And they have a temporary house right now that they love and use all on thier own. It's just hard to keep it clean. As for the pond I never thought about that. Thanks again!

 

[TLWR]

Do you want their house near the pond? If so, figure out how you will clean the house and make it as easy as possible to do that.

I clean my duck house daily by hosing it out, to it was important for me to be near the water source and to have an easy to hose out house.
As for the pond, I'm unsure about a filter with no liner - what type of filter were you thinking?

 

[thetruthpays]

@TLWR that sounds awesome what type of floor do you have in it that you can use a hose without messing up the floor. As far as the filter goes into am not sure yet as I am learning as I go along. They have a small temporary pond right now that has a liner and it has to be changed a lot because of the smell and all the mess in the bottom it just is a wast of to much water and that's the last thing that I want to do. So that is why I decided on no liner as well. But want to keep the water flowing and filtered so it doesn't get all green etc. Oh and yes I want it to be close to the pond. My hose reaches that far so I might go with your idea and hose it out. If it's that simple

 

[TLWR]

Our entire duck and chicken house is made of fence boards. We laid them on the floor and painted them. Their previous house had trex decking leftovers we found.
They have held up very well with daily hosing.

As for a pond, unless it is completely natural, it will need some type of filtration or at least movement. My pond is a raised pond that is about 1000 gallons. It has a liner. I have a separate raised filter box that is about 70 gallons. I forget what I have for a pump, but it moves a lot of water. My filter is set up as a skippy type, but it does need to be cleaned. I leave it as long as possible and then just deal with how unbelievably disgusting it is and clean it. Pond and filter have not been cleaned in well over a year. Needs to be done, but I just don't wanna! The pond does not stink. It is green and nasty like, but no smell and the ducks have no issue with it. They would avoid their little pool after a couple of days because of the gross.
But I'm not sure how well that would work for an unlined pond. Probably fine.... but you'd still need to set something up to act as a true filter outside the pond and pump water to it. Just put the pump up on something so it isn't sucking up the floor of the pond.

 

[thetruthpays]

Our entire duck and chicken house is made of fence boards. We laid them on the floor and painted them. Their previous house had trex decking leftovers we found.
They have held up very well with daily hosing.

As for a pond, unless it is completely natural, it will need some type of filtration or at least movement. My pond is a raised pond that is about 1000 gallons. It has a liner. I have a separate raised filter box that is about 70 gallons. I forget what I have for a pump, but it moves a lot of water. My filter is set up as a skippy type, but it does need to be cleaned. I leave it as long as possible and then just deal with how unbelievably disgusting it is and clean it. Pond and filter have not been cleaned in well over a year. Needs to be done, but I just don't wanna! The pond does not stink. It is green and nasty like, but no smell and the ducks have no issue with it. They would avoid their little pool after a couple of days because of the gross.
But I'm not sure how well that would work for an unlined pond. Probably fine.... but you'd still need to set something up to act as a true filter outside the pond and pump water to it. Just put the pump up on something so it isn't sucking up the floor of the pond.

Thank you for all the information I have been busy working on it. At the moment we have chosen to put in two ponds we have the natural one and one right next to it that we plan on putting a liner so we can see which one will work better for what we are trying to do. So far the natural pond is doing well we have koi in it as well as gold fish and a few frogs. The ducks love it all have gotten along well. I am just trying to find the right size pump and filter for it. If I can clear the water enough to see and enjoy the fish that would be awesome. Because the only time we see them now is at feeding time.