How to house a duck inside?

[LindseyM12]

Hi! I have a duck that needs to live inside because it is defected but I don't know how to house it. (here is a link about the duck) https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=362115
I have no idea how to make a home for it inside without stinking bad. Thanks for the help!

 

[Tia Z.]

I have a couple ducks that I am keeping inside (at night only though) until I can get my coop/pond area secured. They LOVE mirrors and will sit in front of it as long as it's there. You could lay down a chair mat or other large piece of plastic with some towels on top. That way the towels make it comfy but the plastic keeps it from soaking into the carpet and is east to hose off. And I keep a vaccuum nearby and vaccuum the area daily. Funny enough, I let my ducks out in the morning and they don't venture more than 15 feet from the sliding door and pretty much stay on the back porch all day. Good luck! Poor thing

 

[Amiga]

I hope Nettie and Duckyfromoz check in here - they have so much experience with this topic.

I kept our runners in the house for three months due to the weather. I had thought we would have them out in their own house at six weeks or so.

It was actually kind of a treat!

In case it helps - I had them in a puppy playpen in our guest room. I lined the playpen with plastic poultry fence because they were so small when they were first put in there and could have gotten stuck and really hurt themselves with the 2 by 4 inch openings. Anyway, I placed two layers of 6 mil plastic on the floor, with the edges going up the sides of the playpen at least 6 inches, to catch splash.

I found that hardwood shavings were way too dusty, and pine shavings, well, I am allergic to pine shavings

So I bedded with old towels. It is some work, but the rinse water with their poop was the best stuff I ever put on my garden!

Then again, I have eleven ducks.

I used a three gallon waterer placed on top of upturned 5 ounce yogurt containers inside a large diameter, 4 inch deep rubber watering bucket (again to catch splash). For entertainment, I tied a piece of slender rope securely to the top edge of the playpen. I also gave them empty yogurt cups to play with.

Ventilation was a consideration - I usually left the door to the room open, and I have a wooden folding panel with slats that I placed in the doorway to keep the cats out but let the air flow through.

As long as I kept up with bedding changes, there was no strong odor - seriously. But I changed bedding at least three times a day.

How mobile is your duck? It may not need much space.

 

[LindseyM12]

The duck has trouble getting around because of its deformed foot. It pretty much just lays around. He never swam with the other ducks.

 

[duckyfromoz]

He is looking a bit bald isnt he??? Just to give you some hope - when he is due to molt- he may get more feathers than he currently has growing back in. It hard to say for certain- as I dont know what may have caused the issue.

I raise my ducks in the house for a few reasons...Firstly because I like to keep them tame and well used to being handled. And also just because I love them so much and they bring me so much happiness having them close by to talk to and cuddle. BUt Regie is different- She has a deformed hock joint which caused the tendon to slip before she even hatched. She is smaller than a month old Runner and even at over 6 months of age she still has baby fluff attached to her feathers!! Due to her almost complete lack of mobility she lives in a babies portable cot in my bedroom. There is a bassinet insert which slips over the frame to raise the mattress height so I dont have to bend over all the way in to clean it and care for her.

I line the bed with a soft dogs bed mattress and towels so she doesnt ever hurt herself when she does hop around and wash the towels every day. If she wasnt quite so fragile and I had a bigger house- I would have a second area for her with shavings as the bedding as It would be so much less work to keep clean- but due to her small size- she doesnt eat much- and therefore not as much mess as a normal sized duck. She has a swim in a warm bath every night - and thats when I clean out her bed. I had a look at some dog crates that are made of welded wire- some have a plastic tray in the bottom that could be filled with shavings- for easy cleaning. I will go ansd see if I can fins a link to somethign similar on the web somewhere.

 

[duckyfromoz]

Here is a link to a cage similar to the one I was thinking of purchasing. I thought that being totally enclosed. It could go outside without having to worry about Regie and predators- or the other ducks picking on her.

http://www.dealsdirect.com.au/p/42-metal-collapsible-dog-cage/

 

[nettie]

I have six indoor ducks, all healthy... I started off with every intention of keeping them outside after they were big enough, but they just ended up staying inside. lol. Now they are spoiled and hate outside. silly ducks....

Anyways, for my set up, I built them a pen that is in the third bedroom of my house. The pen originally held two ducks, but we got two more, then we ended up adopting two others, so we had to expand. The expansions to our pen were made very simply using clearance bookcases from an Ikea. lol. They are living in their current set up until I can find a contractor (I've already gone through three different ones who flaked out on me) to build us a nice bigger more permanent pen.

Here's an old topic of when I built the pen (back last summer)... It was in my father's garage when I first moved back home to Chicago from Alabama. The black pen in the pictures is now in my third bedroom of our townhouse.... The outdoor area was set up for them, but now they have a different little back yard here at our townhouse...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=238885

this was a very simple pen I built them- It was the first... I did it all by myself using nothing but a jig saw, staple gun, and a drill. lol. It cost maybe $150 to make? Took me about a week. It was meant for two ducks. You could make something similar that's half the size (4ftx4ft). https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=131278

I've had my ducks indoors now for almost 2 years... If you have any questions, please feel free to pm me, or email me ([email protected] I check this email several times a day).

I've built a pen big enough for two ducks for as cheap as $65 and spent one night doing it. It wasn't pretty but it worked (it was a temporary housing thing for the two ducks I adopted before I officially adopted them and let them in with my other ducks).