Entertaining ducks in the winter

[Duckworth]

I open the door between my duck house and pen every morning, even when temps are -10F. The ducks come piling out. I make sure the water I bring out is lukewarm so that it won’t scald them, but will give them a little added warmth. It cools off very fast in those conditions. The thing that seems to matter most is ensuring that my ducks have multiple ways to get out of the wind. I have tarps over the windward sides of house and pen and have straw bales set so that they act as additional windbreaks, plus plenty of loose straw for nestling into. I do deep litter in both house and pen, so any heat generated by the composting process benefits the ducks, too, though I don’t think much heat is generated. The leaward sides of the house and pen are left open for ventilation, though frankly, things freeze so fast that there isn’t a lot of free moisture around. The ducks keep their water buckets open long enough to feed and I go out and add hot water a few times a day to melt through the ice and refill the buckets. They tend to retreat to their house when they are cold.

 

[GldnValleyHens]

It was very cold out, and I felt sorry for my girls and boys, so I brought my call duck hen inside and put her in the sink and turned on the faucet. She played in there for 20 minutes, LOVED it!
But my ducks aren’t very affected by the cold or snow, in fact I let them out and they scurried around and took snow baths! Then they got excited and flew in circles. It had been the first they been out in a long time, and they really enjoyed it!