I need you guys' help in solving my dilemma. I have chickens and ducks. I am unfortunately having to sell my chickens, I don't have the time to devote to them like I used to. However I really don't want to get rid of the ducks. I love them, they are so lovalble. Is there any way I can make the ducks self sufficient like my guineas?? we have 2 acres of land which includes a huge pond- 20ftx45ftx 15 feet deep in the rainy season. We are thinking of maybe fencing in the pond and building them a little house to go to sleep in at home. We need to fence it in because we have raccoons, will the fence keep them out?? If we build them a floating shelter, will that be enough?? please help me figure out how I can keep my ducks oh it might help if you know what they are- they are 3 white pekin, 2 magpies and 1 silver appleyard- all under 3 months old.
My ducks live free on my pond. It requires some work upfront and ongoing but for the most part they are self-sufficient, other than me putting out bowls of food for them. We made some floating docks to anchor out in the pond for them to sleep on. As long as they stay in the pond at night, they are quite safe. If they come on land at night, the bobcats kill them. There is a photo album of instructions for making these out of wooden pallets and pop bottles (cheap!) at www.picturetrail.com/marlipe - it's called Docks for Ducks or something like that. You are welcome to email me if you have questions. We trained the ducks to sleep on the docks by putting a large cage on one and putting the ducks in there at dusk and taking them out at dawn - doing this for 10-14 days does the trick. And if you train a few of the leaders, the others will do what they do. Because ducks like to lay eggs early in the morning when it's still dark and dangerous, we have some nests for the ducks on some of the docks too. We just use old pet carrier type things filled with grass clippings. The ducks use them quite naturally. The other things we do is to always have box traps set for bobcats (and raccoons go in them a lot too although we don't find raccoons to be a problem since the ducks are free to swim away from them) and turtle traps set for snappers. I'm happy to answer any questions for you if you'd like to email me. chickmom at gmail.com Best of luck. I do think that if you can't do some work to help keep them safe, it would be a kindness to find them homes. I don't believe that many fences will keep out raccoons but others may have more opinions on that. Oh, also, does your pond freeze in winter? If so, you will need to consider that as predators can walk out on the ice. We run an aerator in our pond to keep an acre or so thawed through the winter.