Interchangeable Lofted Drake Jail / Duck-Maternity Ward Design Help

[TheDaringDucks]

I'm working on partitioning my modified gazebo to have two sections that interchangeably open or close to form a drake jail above on the shelf, and a nesting area (I like to jokingly call it a duck maternity ward) below. In the above example, you can see the gazebo without the roof/ceiling. The purple/black area is the shelf that will form the floor of the drake jail, while underneath that is the nesting/enclosed area. The yellow is a wood-framed hardware cloth door that will slide up and down garage door type metal tracks (the gray posts) to close off one of the sections, while providing access to the self-cleaning stock tank and run space to the rest to the alternate group. The red/black platform is a platform for the drakes to enter and exit the jail pen during free access time.

(My ducks are fully flighted bantams, so having a raised platform is no issue, they already fly up to their temporary winter quarters roof with ease. Also I plan to put frame out an automatic chicken door in the mesh of the sliding door so that even if the big door was up or down, I could still open the little one to give everyone free access at the same time if desired. The reason I am building this INSIDE the gazebo and not building a second coop to be the drake jail is because I have limits on expanding my duck housing and I'm not able to add on anything else currently. If I could, the boys would get their own clubhouse for sure.)

SO to the point of my question, I wanted to get some opinions on how I should keep the door in the upper (drake jail) position. Any idea on how I can manage that part of the build?

 

[NatJ]

SO to the point of my question, I wanted to get some opinions on how I should keep the door in the upper (drake jail) position. Any idea on how I can manage that part of the build?

A few thoughts:

Can you have a hole in the door and a hole in the track, on each side, and stick a peg in it? You would need a way to keep the peg from falling out. You might want more than one peg per side to make it more stable. Or pegs that stick into the track underneath the door instead of through it. Same consideration of making sure the pegs do not fall out.

Can you put a stick or other prop underneath the door, or underneath each side of it, to keep it up? You would want to fasten the stick in place somehow so it doesn't get knocked out of place. Or shove a few cinder blocks underneath it? They may be heavy enough to stay put and not get knocked out of place.

Can you put a few loops at the top of the door, and loops on the ceiling, and fasten them together? Carabiners might work for that.

Can you put loops on the top of the door and loops on the ceiling, such that they line up when the door is up, and slide a metal rod or a wood dowel through the whole row of loops? (That would work a bit like the hinges on a door: hinge pin goes through metal loops attached to door and metal loops attached to the frame of the door. But for your purpose, I'd probably leave space between the loops rather than putting them all tightly together like on a door hinge.)

Maybe consider some kind of latch or hasp that you can secure with a padlock (or a carabiner, or a snap clip like you find on a dog leash, or any other way of keeping it latched.)

 

[TheDaringDucks]

Can you put a few loops at the top of the door, and loops on the ceiling, and fasten them together?

Hmm... the loops idea is catching my attention, perhaps combining that concept with ropes/pulleys... perhaps even counterweights to make moving the door up and down effortless... There's potential there! Just needs some finagling! Thank you!