Duck Houses

[Britesea]

I live in Ontario Canada and the winters go below 30 I got a pair of welsh harlequin ducks and don't know where to put them in the winter I have about 20 chickens that stay in the garage in the winter with no heat and never lost one can anyone tell me what to do

When I asked about keeping ducks warm in our winters, I was told "Ducks don't need insulation; ducks ARE insulation"

 

[michellers]

I love that! How do you drain the pond? You just have 2 Swedish in there?

Yeah, two females. The pond is elevated and I put a drain in the bottom with a valve. I simply let gravity do the work and it goes out through an old hose out in the yard. Works great!

 

[ShayBaby]

How do you all manage your floors, poop-wise? We've had our 11 in the coop (dirt floor) for not even two weeks and the ground is already a mucky, slimy, pooey mess. I've tried shavings which just get mucky too and shoved into the ground, and taking a pick/shovel to the whole thing to stir the dirt around, but that really didn't help either. The chicken side is easy..deep litter method and rarely needs cleaning at all, but the ducks.. ew. I slide around when I go in there, it obviously smells despite excellent ventilation, and is prime fly breeding ground. What do y'all do to keep it dry and sanitary?

 

[michellers]

I switched out the sand (which was on top of crushed limestone) for round pea gravel. The sand would never dry. The pea gravel dries awesome and drains even better! I can just hose off the rocks and the poop disappears. The smell is also gone. I'm so impressed!

I was told if you can walk on it without any pain, it is good for your ducks. I tested it out barefoot and it was just fine - no "ouch" "ooh" and "yow".

 

[ShayBaby]

Oh! That's an excellent idea! I'll give that a shot ASAP. Thanks!

 

[kbh82310]

Yeah, two females. The pond is elevated and I put a drain in the bottom with a valve. I simply let gravity do the work and it goes out through an old hose out in the yard. Works great!

You really did a great job! I'm stealing your pea gravel idea btw! That is such a great idea. Oh and your girls are really cute!

 

[Britesea]

Well, we started building our duck coop today. I'm building it on concrete piers because I wanted the further protection from predators. So we got the piers and joists in place before it got too dark and cool to work. Hubby has Wednesday off, so we hope to finish the floor and at least start on framing the walls.

After measuring out and looking at the proposed yard, we decided 10x10 was simply too small so we have doubled the size, lol. This way, on those rare occasions when nobody is home, the ducks will have enough room in their fenced run to not feel too crowded. Most of the time though, they will be able to free range our 1/2 acre.

The horses that are keeping the weeds down in the neighboring 'pasture' came over and watched everything we were doing with avid interest. Of course, the offer of a couple of carrots may have had something to do with that, lol

 

[Britesea]

I have a question. The duck house I am building is elevated and has a solid wood floor. I'm familiar with the deep litter system, so was planning on using that. I would like to do something to preserve the wood and make it a little easier to clean. I had thought of putting down a scrap of linoleum, but I haven't been able to locate any- and the idea of buying a piece off the roll at the store bothers me, and the only other choice in that is the "peel & stick" tiles, which I think would be worse than nothing at all. I'm not that comfortable with using something like Thomson's Water Seal (unless someone here has used it with no ill effects?). Would just painting the wood with a quality paint work?

 

[cosbackyard]

I did linoleum. Bought a piece of scrap at our local habitat for humanity re-store. If you're in the states then you may have one nearby. Otherwise you can potentially find scraps at a flooring or big-box hardware store.
Painting it might work but I don't think it would hold up as well.

As messy as ducks are I'm not sure that deep litter would work inside the coop. I use sand.

 

[ShayBaby]

I also wouldn't recommend deep litter for ducks. It works great for my chickens, but I tried deep wood chips in my duck coop and . Even if you don't keep water in the coop, ducks poo water..or rather, poo slime. Within one day, every chip of that litter was a soaked, slimy, slippery disgusting mess. And oh the flies.
I'm buying some pea gravel tomorrow to try micheller's lime and gravel method.