Enclosure Advice, Pool Installment

[Quackattack717]

Helllo,

Was looking for ideas & advice for our baby pool in our enclosure. We have it at ground level, in a large hole dug up. But recently the ground has stopped draining and the dirty water (poopy water) isn’t going anywhere. It’s also a hassle to fill the pool up but that may just be part of having a flock. Please give me ideas on how to fix this, how you have pools installed for your ducks, how you empty and fill them. Anything you can tell me will be helpful!

Thank you!

 

[CoriM]

If you could post pictures of your set-up it would be so helpful!

 

[Quackattack717]

 

[Quackattack717]

Here’s a picture of the “muck pit” as we call it when the pools not in it. This is an older picture. It’s now always full of water and the water will not drain and it’s stinky!

 

[21hens-incharge]

Have you tried putting a spade fork into that to loosen the ground?

So it doesn't dry up even if you leave the pool out for a few days?

 

[Isaac 0]

Helllo,

Was looking for ideas & advice for our baby pool in our enclosure. We have it at ground level, in a large hole dug up. But recently the ground has stopped draining and the dirty water (poopy water) isn’t going anywhere. It’s also a hassle to fill the pool up but that may just be part of having a flock. Please give me ideas on how to fix this, how you have pools installed for your ducks, how you empty and fill them. Anything you can tell me will be helpful!

Thank you!

That's going to happen with dirt that is in constant traffic, I would roto-till most of the dirt and add some organic matter like compost to help aerate the soil, so it can drain better, of course it'll need to dry first. Letting the ducks stand in the soil, they are pushing any oxygen that is left in the soil, it's much easier for them to do that when it's wet too.

 

[DuckyDonna]

This is what I did for that situation.
I put down that black silt cloth on the ground where I wanted the pool to be. It's the stuff they put up while doing construction for erosion I believe. You see it everywhere they are building.

I put landscape timbers or 4 x 4's over the edges of the silt cloth to hold it down and basically make a border.

Then I put a good pallet down on top of that. I put strips of wood between the slats that their feet could fall through so it was almost solid.

I then put some flat rocks all around the area I found around our place. It didn't hurt that the previous owner was a stonemason and left piles of them. I put them as close to each other as I could. The last step was to fill in between those rocks with river rock pebbles that you can get at Home Depot for about $4 a bag. This set up only took 2 bags.

It really was a very simple thing to do and cost me $8 for the pebbles. The pool stays clean for 4-5 days. To drain I just take a bucket and bail it out but you could do a siphon and direct the water away from where you don't want it.

It took them 11 days to go in it. New is BAD! I started off with the blue pool and when they weren't going in it. I thought maybe they didn't like the color so I switched it out and they still wouldn't go in it until one day they finally did.

 

[hayley3]

Since the soil is not draining, couldn't you just make a small natural pond?
I'm in the process of researching how to do one so a complete noob on what it entails.

 

[Quackattack717]

This is what I did for that situation.
I put down that black silt cloth on the ground where I wanted the pool to be. It's the stuff they put up while doing construction for erosion I believe. You see it everywhere they are building.

I put landscape timbers or 4 x 4's over the edges of the silt cloth to hold it down and basically make a border.

Then I put a good pallet down on top of that. I put strips of wood between the slats that their feet could fall through so it was almost solid.

I then put some flat rocks all around the area I found around our place. It didn't hurt that the previous owner was a stonemason and left piles of them. I put them as close to each other as I could. The last step was to fill in between those rocks with river rock pebbles that you can get at Home Depot for about $4 a bag. This set up only took 2 bags.

It really was a very simple thing to do and cost me $8 for the pebbles. The pool stays clean for 4-5 days. To drain I just take a bucket and bail it out but you could do a siphon and direct the water away from where you don't want it.

It took them 11 days to go in it. New is BAD! I started off with the blue pool and when they weren't going in it. I thought maybe they didn't like the color so I switched it out and they still wouldn't go in it until one day they finally did.
View attachment 2110168
View attachment 2110169

This is beautiful! Thank you so sharing. Our space isn’t quite as large as yours and all the grass is long gone in the enclosure. But I’m definitely going to show my husband and see if he can build something similar!

 

[DuckyDonna]

This is beautiful! Thank you so sharing. Our space isn’t quite as large as yours and all the grass is long gone in the enclosure. But I’m definitely going to show my husband and see if he can build something similar!

there really isn't much work to build it at all. I honestly don't think it took me 2 hours all together and that was with finding little pieces of wood to go in the slats of the pallet. Haha, it seems like that was the hardest part of the project.

I just can't get over how clean the pool stays now. I think the further out you make the border the cleaner the pool will be because they won't want to walk all the way to the pool after they go "drilling" in the mud.