Duck Houses

[Skiier47]

Another pic showing the drain

 

[smccuen]

Another pic showing the drain

nice....that beats dumping and re-filling a kiddie pool every morning....and it makes such lovely water for the garden or compost bin or just for the lawn..

 

[PrayingMantis]

Do you have blueprints of your duck house and pen? We are new at this and need blueprints for dummies. We do not have the finances to make mistakes. We have 2 welsh and 2 cambells. We also have about 200sqft of used trex decking that is intended to build the house with. Any help is appreciated!

 

[PrayingMantis]

We like your duck house! Do you have a copy of the blueprints for newbies? We have 2 cambells and 2 welsh and need a predator proof house. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[sassy01]

That is a nice duck house.

 

[smccuen]

They like their floating house!

 

[cjhubbs]

I just found out I will be a duck caretaker in a few weeks from my parents. Apparently my grandfather will be bringing us some Peking ducklings home and he says that it can be any amount I want up to 28 ducks (not happening XD). I was wondering how large a "duck house" or shed as well as a pen would need to be to house say 3-4 ducks and a drake? I was thinking about building or getting something similar in structure to a large doghouse say maybe 5 ft. long and 3 ft wide, would this be large enough? I also was curious about whether or not the ducks will need nesting boxes for their eggs similar to chickens or if they won't and if they will how many boxes for 4 ducks? Thanks so much for answering my total newbie questions! Now I just can't wait for my storey's guide to raising ducks book to arrive and then I can actually start to get prepared for my new ducks to come home

.

 

[GarDenFarmGirl]

These are pictures of my recent duck house. It is covered in 1/2" hardward cloth so predators can't get to my girls. One end has a small dog house that they can enter as they want. There are brick pavers under the dog house and about a foot in front of it. The opposite end has the water - a large plastic feed/water tub that sits on smooth river rock. The center area is sand and I cover the center area and pavers with wood shavings. So far it is working well. I keep their food on the dry side and they have their little pool and an additional water bowl on the wet side. The between area gets pretty wet, but I frequently rake the shavings and they dry quickly. The girls free range outside with my chickens when I am home. (The big door to my chicken coop is on the right in the bottom picture.) The chickens have a separate large enclosed (with hardward cloth) outside run to the right of this picture with a pop door from the coop so they can go in and out at will. Now, if I could just get a way for the water to clean itself!

 

[ShayBaby]

I just found out I will be a duck caretaker in a few weeks from my parents. Apparently my grandfather will be bringing us some Peking ducklings home and he says that it can be any amount I want up to 28 ducks (not happening XD). I was wondering how large a "duck house" or shed  as well as a pen would  need to be to house say 3-4 ducks and a drake? I was thinking about building or getting something similar in structure to a large doghouse say maybe 5 ft. long and 3 ft wide, would this be large enough? I also was curious about whether or not the ducks will need nesting boxes for their eggs similar to chickens or if they won't and if they will how many boxes for 4 ducks? Thanks so much for answering my total newbie questions! Now I just can't wait for my storey's guide to raising ducks book to arrive and then I can actually start to get prepared for my new ducks to come home .

I'll answer as best I can although I'm fairly new to duck ownership myself. (By a few months.) I've never heard personally a specific space amount for ducks, but I've used the same allowance as for LF chickens in my coop/run design.. 4 sq ft per bird in coop, 10 sq ft per bird in run. And nope, although you could place some nesting boxes on/near the ground and hope they use them, ducks don't really use them like chickens do and will lay wherever they darn well feel like it lol. Good luck with your ducks! I know you'll love them!

 

[Duck Drover]

Ducks seem to like nesting under leaning boards (I have one sitting under a sandwich sign we made for a yard sale last summer). I have an A frame cat house my ducks use but other than that they find their own places to nest. I have given them an assortment of dog houses with bedding but their favorite place is behind our truck tailgate (removed it to put a contractor's canopy on the truck). They have room under the coop for shelter but they often sleep in the yard in the grass instead. We have a fenced yard in town so the only predators are cats and they don't bother the ducks. Our own cat likes to pretend she is hunting ducks so she occasionally sneaks up on one and taps it with her paw in a sort of "tag, you're it" way, LOL. She is a strange cat who thinks one of our dogs is her mother so she is not bothered by the dog smell that keeps neighbor cats from hanging out in our yard.