Duck water as fertilizer

[Louise Waffles]

I assume then that both of you have double checked my math, and I'm completely right?
I have a muscovy that's broody, and my brain is full of thoughts of fuzzy yellow ducklings OHMAHGAWD.
Sometimes the non-chicken/duck/whatever keeping brain does not actually possess the skills needed to perform the complex calculations required by the various kinds of poultry math. Chicken math is different from BANTAM chicken math (double all numbers here, bantams are so little) is different from guinea fowl math, etc. Sometimes the best thing to do is just pat their hand and say some soothing nonsense with an affirmation of YOUR assuredness that your calculations are correct. Because they totally are "There, there. It's okay, dear. I know exactly what I'm doing."
Please remember to take into account the different poultry types when doing this. There are always outside factors that must be considered, like CLIMATE CHANGE. There's going to be more ticks because of climate change. So guineafowl numbers have to be halved or doubled as needed. I have none, but was CONSIDERING getting a pair + climate change= I must now get four guineas. If I had two guineafowl, we would still say I had zero because climate change zeroes them out. I don't know that I really want guineafowl though, but since it occurred to me to have them, let's just say I will trade 4 guineafowl for 6 ducklings, allowing my muscovy to hatch ducklings. If I do decide I want guineafowl, they must be in my possessiom BEFORE the muscovy eggs hatch ("don't count your chickens before they hatch" law applies to all poultry). When the duck eggs hatch, I will shrug my shoulders and say I HAD NO IDEA THIS WAS HAPPENING LOOK AT MY BABY GUINEAS THEY WILL EAT TICKS OFF OF THE DOGS LIKE THOSE FISH THAT CLEAN UP THE SHARKS! NO I HAVE NOT HAD ANY WINE. (If it was an odd number, round down. And 1 is always an odd number, so....

 

[2MooreChicks]

I love this. Are there different rules for hatching eggs? Like, an average hatch rate for duck eggs is maybe 50% but that goes down when you have them shipped, so let's say it becomes 30%. And if you wanted a pair of ducks then you could actually have 3 because it's an odd number so you really just have two, and to hatch 3 ducks you should set 10 because they're being mailed, but you don't normally find eggs for sale in sets of 10 so you have to get a dozen and then the seller puts a couple extra in the box in case they get broken or what not. So that's why I just ordered 12+ Bantam Silver Appleyard eggs WOOHOO!

 

[Louise Waffles]

I love this. Are there different rules for hatching eggs? Like, an average hatch rate for duck eggs is maybe 50% but that goes down when you have them shipped, so let's say it becomes 30%. And if you wanted a pair of ducks then you could actually have 3 because it's an odd number so you really just have two, and to hatch 3 ducks you should set 10 because they're being mailed, but you don't normally find eggs for sale in sets of 10 so you have to get a dozen and then the seller puts a couple extra in the box in case they get broken or what not. So that's why I just ordered 12+ Bantam Silver Appleyard eggs WOOHOO!

See? You're brilliant. I can quite clearly see that if were we neighbors we would have wine and cupcakes while acquiring ducks and poring over seed catalogs. Probably we would wear matching mucky boots and bib overalls. Our shirts would coordinate, but not match, that would be too much. We could organize duck playdates,contradict our husbands, and be REALLY GOOD AT MATH.

 

[2MooreChicks]

See? You're brilliant. I can quite clearly see that if were we neighbors we would have wine and cupcakes while acquiring ducks and poring over seed catalogs. Probably we would wear matching mucky boots and bib overalls. Our shirts would coordinate, but not match, that would be too much. We could organize duck playdates,contradict our husbands, and be REALLY GOOD AT MATH.

WHERE HAVE U BEEN ALL MY LIFE?!

 

[Louise Waffles]

Where have YOU been? When I read you'd kept chickens in your bathtub, I was all OHMAHGAWD THIS IS A PERSON WHO WOULD NOT JUDGE ME FOR KEEPING THAT ROOSTER AND HEN IN A PACKNPLAY IN MY KITCHEN. But only at night. Because I don't have a spare bathtub.

So I was thinking about how on Craigslist people are always like PLEASE JUST COME TAKE MY HOT TUB AWAY IT'S BROKEN AND FREE. I wonder how difficult it would be to convert it to a duck pond, then use hoses to drain the water to the garden? There's a lot of muck at the bottom....I brought this up last night, and my husband kind of glazed over and left the room. I think he had already quit listening because I was playing guineafowl noises on YouTube and saying what happiness it would be to hear guineas making noise. Also, the neighbors would love me even more than they already do.
Anyway: last spring and summer I hauled 5 gallon buckets of duck pool water to various plants. While this system is effective, it's labor/time intensive and has resulted in the kind of muscles that make my delicately built friends say things like "Let's get Louise to do it. She's FARM STRONG." I think the idea of turning a spigot with one hand to let that water run through a hose to my garden while holding a mason jar of wine with the other hand just sounds like a dream come true. In that dream I would be listening to the happy sounds of saws and drills and hammers while Bob Vila builds me a beautiful chicken coop/duck house and the druck delivering my herd of giraffes show up.

 

[2MooreChicks]

Full disclosure: there are currently chicks in my bathtub. It's actually a great brooder setup because it has the sliding glass doors and I just clip a heat lamp to the door handle. My first 4 chickens spent their first year in there at night (they roasted on the spring loaded bath shelves. 4 chickens + 4 shelves = perfection) and spent their days in a covered dog pen that I moved around the yard.

I actually think your hot tub idea is brilliant. (Of course I do. YOU are brilliant.) I think the hardest part would be moving the danged thing, which is probably why ppl give them away to anyone who will come and move them. But I also like that they usually have a light colored interior so you can actually see your ducks. In fact I was thinking about getting this epoxy that koi breeders use on the bottom of their ponds so you can see the fish to paint the interior of my stock tank, but a hot tub would already be perfect!

The thing I worry about with any pond-to-garden setup is all the muck. Some ppl are saying they installed a bottom drain and just flush the muck out but I feel like it would always be clogged up.

Also, poultry+seed catalogs+wine and/or cupcakes+muck boots, bib overalls and contradicting my husband equals pretty much everything I want out of life.

 

[Louise Waffles]

I see the consistency of the much that is at the bottom of the pools I dump every day, and I imagine it would take a good sized drain to keep it flowing. It would need a big enough drain to get a good bit of it, or maybe a shop vac to suck the rest of it out? All that muck could go into the compost pile and work wonders. I am almost certain there is someone here who has solved the problem perfectly. I expect there is a good deal of work involved even after all the problem solving, what with the muck and all when you have to empty and refill. Jump in there with a shop vac??
I think you should look up duckponics on a website called Freestyle Farm. They built a lovely duckponics setup because they hated plastic kiddie pools. Anyway, they use various pumps and gravel to filter, and have stuff growing in gravel. I imagine you being far more serious about it, with a big garden to water.
I've seen all sorts of stuff online, but will have to stick with the bucket method for now. Children will be enlisted and paid in fun size Snickers bars, haha.
When you get this done, I for sure want to know how it works. Because I'll get a hot tub at some point and want to know. If it doesn't work you'll learn and fix it! And then it will be AMAZING!
I am considering more chickens, in an effort to get a new coop built. If I keep them in the bathtub, and we have only one, well...sound like a plan? Off to finish painting my kitchen a contrary shade of green now!

 

[2MooreChicks]

I see the consistency of the much that is at the bottom of the pools I dump every day, and I imagine it would take a good sized drain to keep it flowing. It would need a big enough drain to get a good bit of it, or maybe a shop vac to suck the rest of it out? All that muck could go into the compost pile and work wonders. I am almost certain there is someone here who has solved the problem perfectly. I expect there is a good deal of work involved even after all the problem solving, what with the muck and all when you have to empty and refill. Jump in there with a shop vac??
I think you should look up duckponics on a website called Freestyle Farm. They built a lovely duckponics setup because they hated plastic kiddie pools. Anyway, they use various pumps and gravel to filter, and have stuff growing in gravel. I imagine you being far more serious about it, with a big garden to water.

That sounds kinda like the natural swimming pools everybody's building now. If it's sufficient for human use I suppose it would do for my theoretical ducks

I will go there and see what they have to teach me.But if I end up sucking out the muck with my shop vac I would probably have to stop using it to vacuum my house. It's just so EFFECTIVE, every other vacuum I've ever has had committed vacuum suicide.

 

[Louise Waffles]

I love a shop vac. A regular vacuum serves no purpose here. I have destroyed far too many!
Okay, have you read about stocking with snails? SUPPOSEDLY, they will help keep the pond clean. Also, tadpoles. I think they sound more like duck snacks, though. Have you seen this?

 

[2MooreChicks]

I just discovered that the property we bought has an old well: HECK YEAAHHHHH. I thought it was just another pile of tree limbs and garbage the previous owners so thoughtfully left scattered all over our property, then I started poking around and discovered the well cap and a small tank. The neighbors said it doesn't work but I did my
Pagan water witching routine and there's still water down there, I just have to figure out a way to get it to the surface.

Which means I have made bigger, more elaborate plans for a self-sustaining duck pond-slash-garden involving a solar well pump that delivers to a tank uphill, which should create enough water pressure to flush out a pond fitted with a large valve which can then be routed through my garden's theoretical irrigation system. The downside is that I cannot currently afford a solar well pump so it looks like my fuzzy babies will have to make do with a kiddie pool which I will tip over and hose out every now and then.

I think there's probably a type of poultry math that addresses all the supplies you buy and the structures you build to accommodate your birds. In my efforts to create a green, low-maintenance, high-efficiency pond and garden symbiosis I am about to drop a month's worth of my salary on some ducks.