Floating Duck House anyone?

[khuff99]

Do any of you have a floating duck house for your ducks? We have a 1.5 acre pond I would love to put a floating duck house with a few ducks.

For those of you that have one, could you please share photos and ...
1. What type of bedding do you use and how often do you clean it?
2. How do you access the house? Pulley system, etc?

 

[SolarDuck]

Do any of you have a floating duck house for your ducks? We have a 1.5 acre pond I would love to put a floating duck house with a few ducks.

For those of you that have one, could you please share photos and ...
1. What type of bedding do you use and how often do you clean it?
2. How do you access the house? Pulley system, etc?

I dont have a pond but sounds like a super cool idea! It'll be interesting to see what you come up with!

 

[Miss Lydia]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threadloom/search?keywords=Floating+duck+house&tab=0

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

By coincidence i discovered that those juice bottles fit perfectly under/into one of the wooden pallets i have sitting around here:

​

There is room to insert a total of 24 juice bottles and if my math is correct those would create a lift of ~45 Kilograms (105lbs), which is more than enough to float the pallet itself plus a lot of duck. I also thought about adding some kind of cover on top. - Not as a duck house, but more as a coverage/protection against birds of prey.
The pictures above are about a week old and in the meantime i have added all 24 bottles and secured them. I want to cover the gaps between the slats of the pallet before doing the first float test in the pond if the weather permits and will post some additional pictures later today or tomorrow.
You could lash multiple pallets together with long zip-ties (they sell those at Harbor-Freight) if you need more space for your ducks.

 

[humblehillsfarm]

I can't comment in terms of my own experience or even ducks for that matter, but I follow someone on IG who made a floating island for their swans and the swans bed down there every night and hatched babies on it too. Very cool! I'd be worried about training the ducks to use the floating duck house, but I've not had ducks since I was a kid so idk much about them.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

As promised: Pictures from the finished float, first the underside with all 24 juice bottles inserted

And the rough top-side where the duckies are supposed to sit on

 

[Ruby Rogue]

As promised: Pictures from the finished float, first the underside with all 24 juice bottles inserted

And the rough top-side where the duckies are supposed to sit on

How did this work out?

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

How did this work out?

Well, it floats…
I have secured it in the pond with two ropes, so it'll stay in the middle of the pond. For the first two days the ducks were so afraid of that new thing in their pond that they wouldn't go into the water. After that the pond has frozen over and has been covered in ice or sludge since then and they can't go in. You can see the raft floating in the pond in the video below:

It floats very stable and will server the ducks well - once winter is over here…

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Update on the floating pallet: My ducks are still scared of that big floating thing in their pond and at the moment they prefer the clogged drainage-ditch overflow puddle because it is closer to the house, but on Tuesday evening a pair of wild Mallards used the island as an overnight stop: