for those of you with freeranged ducks..

[Ducklove334]

how many of you lock yours up in a "coop" at night??

I think I'm going to go ahead with my long-thought out idea, of freeranging everyone BUT the mallards.

see, I was going to build a second pen for my four mallards, so I'd atleast have SOEM sort of purebred.

but now I'm thinking, that with the 12x12 duck house thats near completion, I want to split it in half, the actual house is going outside the pen, with a hole cute in the fencing for the door.

I'm thinking about seeing if we can put another door on the other side, then I would build a temporary fence so the ducks could run around.

SO, how long did it take to train your ducks to go into the shelter by themselves??

I trained ducks to "go to bed" before, it only took about a month, but that was with 3 ducks already in a pen, not free ranging.

a few of the younger ducks I'm planning to keep (Templeton,Jingo,Nikki) already know they go into the brooder room at night, would that help once they were with the flock??

 

[Mrs. Turbo]

we freerange ourstandard ducks. They are just our pet "pond ducks" so we don't care if they mix up a little. We do lock them up in a secure house at night.

 

[headred]

I live in town and have my ducks in my chain link fenced yard. I kept them in a pen for a couple of months and then decided to leave them out at night too since we don't seem to have any predators, so far. They seem to really like being free and are very quiet at night. I suppose you take a chance by not cooping them, but overall I like this as long as I feel they are safe. They also seem much more calm and we have no time line as far as needing to get them in or out of a coop everyday.

 

[zinnia]

I lock my girls up every night in a secure "kennel", as we have wildcats, possums, skunks, foxes, owls and such at night. The geese seem to do fine with no shelter because they are so big and sassy...
It also seems to train the ducks better, if you are into getting eggs, to have them consistently put in the same place every night.
But I am as yet a newbie and learning as I go...

 

[Wifezilla]

Mine have a night pen. Even in suburbia there are tons of things that would love a free duck dinner.

 

[ChickBond 007]

My ducks free-range over 60 acres all day, but come to the driveway at dusk waiting for me to put them to bed in their duck kennel (with a chicken wire top cover). They know the routine, and enjoy it. In the winter, they would "kennel" themselves but are reluctant to do so in the summer. We have many predators, and they know that safety is inside the wire.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Mine are so used to not being locked up that I can't even con them into going inside a pen so I can catch them!

Knock-on-wood, I haven't lost any in almost a year, and that one was to my dog

 

[GrannySue]

My ducks are locked up at night, "free range" on my vast estate of 1/3 acre during the day. It was a toss-up - garden or poultry? 10 chickens and 5 ducks (for the moment) won.
I've lost birds to hawks and raccoons. Hawks during the day, raccoons any time from not-quite-dark through the night. It's just not worth the risk at night.

 

[Wifezilla]

It was a toss-up - garden or poultry?

That's why I have garden beds in the FRONT yard and in the side yard. The ducks rule the back yard

 

[Goat_Walker]

I do. They are actually in their fenced in area when Im not home,and when I am I open the gate and let them loose!