Duck house near pond...

[magdalene74]

Ok, we have ascertained that the lake is safe by the fact that it has huge fish in it, so i want ducks. Ive decided to house them separately from the chickens, because the chickens will be in a chicken tractor so that i can move them to fresh pasture every day or every few days, and i want the ducks to be able to make liberal use of the pond (plus i dont want any problems with interspecies romance, if you know what i mean...) this plan may change, but for now, what are your suggestions for a good duck habitat? I wont be including any kiddy pools or playable water in their house since they will have ample time to play in the water when they are outside in the pond (pond is, oh, say 30 foot across? with cattails and fish and froggies to munch...hopefully the turtles wont be a problem...) I have lots of little out buildings and sheds and containers to work with, but i need to modify them inexpensively for now, and im hoping they will lay eggs, since ive heard duck eggs are delicious heh. Also since this is a brand new farm, ideas for breeds, characteristics, and recommendations on how many males to females etc would be wonderful Thankies

 

[TheEggCollecter]

I was introduced to ducks about a month ago and I have found the Cayuga duck to be the perfect breed for me. They are extremely quiet (both male and female), great foragers, love the water, lay eggs, and very docile flightless birds. Not to to mention how how pretty they are with there black and shiny green feathers!

 

[thomasboyle]

I have a large, 2 acre pond in my backyard, so I did the same thing, got some ducks. I got 24 baby mallards from a local feed store, and once they were adults, they lived on the pond, and that fall, most migrated south. I was left with 3 that due to injuries could not fly, so they stayed with me over the winter, and raised 2 batches of babies. I gave one batch of babies to my sister who has a pond in her yard, and she has 8 pet ducks, and I now have 8 mallards and 8 pekins. The funny thing is the second batch of mallards wants no part of the pond, and they always stay in the yard with the chickens. I have a kiddie pool that I use for the pekins - they can't really fly well, since they are so big, so having them live on the pond was not a safe idea due to the high volume of predators we have.

 

[magdalene74]

So far so good, got some good advice on type, those cayugas sound AWESOME, love the idea of black eggs, though it looks like the color is a coating that might come off?? Then again that is the way of most colors isnt it? Dark colors anyway on eggs. Now, need some advice on structure

 

[TheEggCollecter]

Not sure how much I can help with structure I keep mine with my chickens.