I thought about that, but the thought of them drinking poop filled water worries me more. Maybe a good temp pen would be one of the chain link pens at Tractor Supply. They're only 10x10, but that's big enough for a pair until next season.
-Kathy
@nkieler , what can you tell us about your current pea housing situation? Please understand, no one is trying to pile on or fuss at you. Peas are just so different from other poultry birds -- they are really pheasants, not chickens or ducks, and they just have very different needs.
The duck/goose cohabitation might work for free-ranged birds (you can find many photos of beautiful large places with lots of free-roaming peas on BYC) but could make the peas sick or cause them to die in the size pen you are describing.
Regular old ducks and geese would do fine in that, with the little pond. But it's not healthy for peas to be in mud, and they really do need more room, if only to maneuver. I'm having heeby-jeebies about the tight corners myself. And even in Southern California, I'm still thinking some kind of physical shelter -- a shed roof, a three-sided run in, something out of the wind, would be helpful to the peas.
Now a big old barn, on the other hand, can make perfect pea housing. Do you happen to have one that isn't full of horses or broken-down old tractors? If you can rig even temporary fencing off the barn, the peas will love roosting in there. Do you have enough land and few enough predators to be able to free range the peas?
The dog pen solution that Kathy mentions also works, though it is helpful if the roof is higher, and if you buy two dog pens and hook them together, you can expand the area quite a bit. In a pinch, you could run some dog pen panels off one of those barns, and be good for a long time.
It's not mainly a question of socialization, and whether peas get along with ducks. It's more a question of suitable habitat, because once the ducks and geese make the area their own, it could be disastrous for a pea.
Oh yes, and having been chased on numerous occasions by some outrageously aggressive geese, I'm wondering if there might not be catastrophic consequences between a hormone-goofy pea and an idiotic goose when they are too closely confined... So the only way I see the socialization question cutting in a pen that size and shape is AGAINST it. But in a (significantly) bigger area, or free-ranged, those critters will get along fine... They will choose the habitat they prefer, and be able to stay out of each other's way.
Best of luck with it -- and please feel free to keep brainstorming it with us, maybe we can help you think of something outside the fence (I mean, "box")...
Edited to add -- oh yeah, and we should talk about the chain link and fencing options and how to keep the peas safe, and also the overhead options so they don't get killed on the roof... They are really tough, but also really fragile in some ways.
