someone help i’m so worried about them! it’s suppose to get to 35° fahrenheit (possibly lower!) tomorrow night. will our pond freeze and the ducks won’t have any predator escape? we don’t have their winter coop ready (they will be living at someone else’s house) so we can’t catch them and keep them anywhere! will they still be able to escape predators! i live with my parents and am not old enough to drive and we can’t take them anywhere tomorrow! please someone help me! will the water freeze? i’m so worried about my babies! (we have 6 of them and none of them can fly so will the water freeze?!?!?!)
Chances are good that the pond won't freeze more than a light crust overnight if it's big enough to be a safe haven from predators when thawed. If it freezes at all. The wind and thermal mass of the lake and earth beneath the lake means that it will likely have to be substantially cooler before it freezes. If it does freeze it certainly won't hold the weight of anything big enough to eat a duck. But freezing is very unlikely. 35*F isn't even cold enough to freeze water. Water is still liquid at 35*F, and that's without the thermal mass of the lake and the earth and the motion of the wind. Obviously that won't last all winter though. But you should have some time before ponds freeze over. To put it in perspective, in winter in my unheated garage 32oz water bottles do not freeze even at 30*F because of the thermal mass of the garage itself absorbing heat during the day and slowly releasing it at night. Those bottles are much smaller than a whole pond.
If the water temperature is 32 degrees, half of it will be liquid and half will be solid. But that is only if the water is at 32. An air temperature of 32 does not mean the water will also be that cold. Water has the ability to hold the heat from the day and not freeze at night if it doesn’t get too cold. All this to say, don’t worry. You will need to get them to the winter coop but you have some time before you really need to.