duck pond

[kruby01]

Its a few years since I've had ducks but I'm going to pick some young khaki Campbell's up on Sunday.
I live on a small holding and for the first few weeks I have a paddling pool in my front garden for them. I have a small lake over the field but there is a problem with daytime and nighttime foxes here and the lake is too big to fence off properly.
I have considered digging a small pond in the garden but remembering how hard it was to keep the old pond clear with a plastic liner I don't want to go down the plastic route again really but I would like something more permanent than a paddling pool whether that be with the existing lake being made secure or a new lake being made easy to clean.
I was just wondering if anyone had any suggetions?
Thanks

 

[BlueEggsDaily]

Have you considered any dogs that could protect your ducks from the foxes?

And I would have to think that even if you decide to build yourself another smaller cleanable pond your ducks would be just as adventurous and make their way to the other pond and may want to stay? Maybe you could set up some fox traps while your ducks are growing up? Or go hunting
Especially if a fence is out of the questions but foxes are good little diggers.
Shoot- that's a hard one. I hope it works out with whatever you choose.

 

[kruby01]

Unfortunately I'm not able to keep a dog here, I do hunt though but only have shotguns which I've agreed I won't use here until October time because there are pheasant pens next door. We had a few foxes a few months ago before the pheasant chicks came but there is plenty more around here. The garden is fenced off away from the pond so unless they got over the fence roughly 4ft then they wouldn't see it as it is quite a distance.
There is no great urgency as I know people use a pool for the life of their ducks but while I have the space and ability to do it then I would like to make use of that with a more natural pond but that leaves the issue of cleaning.
If I let them on the natural lake then its too big for me to get them off it at night so they would have to live down there with no protection