Hottentot and Ringed Teal Ducks

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

as long as ants and or mice arent getting into the feed, you can leave it as long as needed as long as it stays dry

 

[HottentotTeal]

Quote:
I will try to take a picture of it when i get a chance. Our house is raised and set on pier and beam as well as having a cement foundation.

We have enough space to crawl under the house, well i can crouch and move around under there. there is about 3 feet to work with under the house and i ran the hoses to the filter through a piece of removable wood.

I set the filter on top of a piece of the concrete foundation. A little hard to explain, but i will try to take a pic shortly.


The pump pumps the water to the filter, so since the filter cannot be submerged, I don't have much of a choice. It contains a UV filter (with a UV lamp) to kill algae so I imagine that is the main reason it can't be submerged. Also it is fairly light, considering its size and would just float even if i tried to put it in the pond. Plus it would stick out of the pond because of its size.

During lunch, I just went through all of our receipts for the entire project. It's around $4500.

I forgot to include the price of the ducks and maybe 1 or 2 things, so it's actually a few hundred dollars more when all is said and done.


I also want to put in at least one more plant for them on the opposite end from the door, by the stone mushroom. I want to wait and put in the duck shed first to see where it would make the most sense.

It seems the little plastic tray i put under the bowl is working wonders at keeping the ants away. I have not seen any since putting it out there and of course going around the yard and killing all of the mounds and also leaving some foodgrade DE all around the aviary on the outside and in a few spots they were making their way in.

I forgot to mention that they are now eating everything pretty quick, so I normally just head back out in an hour after feeding them to pick up everything and then replace their water dish back out there.

Before feeding in the morning and afternoon, I pick up any rocks with poop on them and dump them in the water dish and wash the rocks off and then put them back out. It seems pretty easy to clean the aviary, since they usually stay in one place most of the time.



EDIT:

I went out and took a few more pics (primarily of the pump/filter system) and will upload them in about 2 hours, after i finish cooking.


EDIT 2:

Here are some pictures I took of the pump/filter hoses. They run under a very small space under the sight barrier. I have nearly the entire sight barrier covered underneath with a piece of wood between each concrete post .( 2"x 6" i think)

There are probably 2 spots around the perimeter where you can actually get just barely more than 1 inch of clearance, provided you know where to dig up the several inches of pebbles and rock and also rake out some dirt.. This is one spot.

Here is the Filter Unit stored under the house on top of part of the concrete foundation. I had to take a can of wasp spray with me just to be safe. So far no wasp nests have been under there. It was also a good excuse for me to crawl in there and put the 2 screw hooks so i could raise the electrical cable for the pump and filter. I didn't want water or dirt to get into it, not that water gets in there, but if the filter for some reason breaks or leaks, I wouldn't want it to cause any damage.

I am out of green rocks and given the price per pound, I don't know if my wife will want me to get any more, so this is as much as i could cover up the hoses for now. I'll probably get a little more rock later on, though. We did quite enough monetary damage for now.

Also, you can see they just ate their food. The water in the water bowl is brown because that is where they usually dip their bills to wash it down. The clear plastic mat helps catch any food they might drop on the ground.

 

[HottentotTeal]

Time for a few picture updates:

I took these 2 pics of them a few weeks ago:

I repainted the outside of the aviary pretty much all over, because I had re-caulked a lot of the seams after i put on the outer thin boards to cover the seams of the mesh.

Here is a top view:

Here was a view i took that makes them look like they are in a little jungle. I bought another large bamboo muhly grass plant.

I never got around to taking a pic of the finalized outside and front area. I added a few more ledgestones. I want to put a few more out there and expand the moongravel area because i am wearing the grass out.

Kind of hard to see, but I put in their little duck shed in the far left back that i constructed a few weeks ago. They haven't really used it, because it's pretty hot as it is, but the left half of the aviary from this view is usually out of the sun's way most of the time during the day.

 

[Blob Chicken]

Very nice !!!

Are you city keeper too ??

 

[HottentotTeal]

Hi Blob Chicken,

Yes. I wish i had more space so i could have more.

 

[HottentotTeal]

Just a small update:

I was able to pet one the other week. It was night time and i usually go in late at night while they are resting or sleeping in the pond, so i can drop about 4-6 fish pellets in their pond for them to eat.

My wife was walking the dog and had the ducks' attention and they are quite used to me, but other people, they tend to shy away from and they just floated over by me in the pond.

They were about a foot away, so i just reach out slowly and was able to pet one of them for about 2 seconds, until they both hopped out.


I also pet one this morning, because they simply would not move when i went in.

I try not to pet them too much, because i don't want them to get too freightened. I try maybe once every other week if the situation is just right, though.



I'm also going to go buy my first bag of food this weekend. I'll probably get the Purina Gamerbird Chow Maintenance or the Mazuri. whichever one they have in stock.

Also, I don't know if i mentioned this, but i bought a larger toadstool for them and birdbath.

 

[sianara]

Hi Hottentot,

I love this thread! I get so excited when I see a new response with pictures from you. Keep it up. They are beautiful birds

 

[HottentotTeal]

I was cleaning out the pond as i usually do every weekend and as i was draining the last bit of water out, the ducks were very much like the second pic above where one was on the lava rock and the other was in the bird bath.

The one in the bird bath made a sound. Can't really describe it other than a squirrel chattering. I thought it was pretty neat. I've had them for 4 months now and they make a very soft and barely audible dove-like sound if they ever do make one. I never heard the other sound before. Pretty neat.

 

[HottentotTeal]

Here's a few pictures i took today.

I took a video of them and caught them Diving in the pond for the very first time.


In the first few pics, you can see a couple of oat sprouts against the wall in the back and between the monkey grass and toadstool.

 

[KansasKid]

Whats that apparently yummy stuff in the bowl? Dog or catfish food?