mites..I think??

[violet23]

Well the war between the two had finally calmed down. My husband was very upset at first. But i pointed out, that when i would put the drake in the pen. To give the female a brake she would stay right beside him on the outside. He was very tiff on her on And off for 2 wks. But I'm happy to say I haven't seen any aggression in a week or so. Peace is back.....i hope.

 

[violet23]

Heat??? 4 ducks..4x4.coop. rigid insulation all around. Deep hay. Can I use a 75 watt black lite bulb. My 250 watt heat lamp seems like overt kill. Don't want to cook them. Can't find any colored bulbs more than 25watt. Don't want to use white. When should I consider heat for them? When the nights go into single digits? We are in central New Hampshire.

 

[Amiga]

I am real nervous about electricity, lamps, and all in duck shelters with all that flammable bedding. My own solution was to move the ducks into the walkout basement that stays above freezing without having to run electric.

Those who have expertise in that area, great, I just don't.

 

[JadeComputerGal]

I agree with Amiga. What you're proposing is extremely risky. Not only are those types of bulbs very dangerous in that scenario (as Amiga mentioned), it would be potentially even worse to add heat in your coop even by other, safer methods because that coop is much too small to heat, and the ducks themselves generate body heat. A coop that size with four ducks in it isn't going to be as cold as it might seem.

I know it's hard not to feel sorry for them. It makes me shiver just to look out the back door at my ducks, but I don't think they're sharing my concern because it's 29 degrees here right now with a real feel of 5 degrees and most of them are swimming around in one of their ponds while a couple of others forage. Their metabolism gradually adjusts to seasonal changes, and their down helps keep them warm. "Gradual" is the operative word here because ducks can't tolerate dramatic, sudden temperature swings. If you were to find a way of maintaining the coop at even a "toasty" 40-45 degrees for them to go in at night, then they come back out to 0-10 degree weather during the day, you're likely going to have dead ducks before the winter is over. As long as you feed them good food with some high-energy supplements like corn, they should be absolutely fine.

 

[Amiga]

I hesitate to generalize too much about ducks and temperatures - I was following "the book" our first winter, and I am glad I closed the book, watched the Runners and made my own decisions.

What I found with my flock is that we have not had trouble with temperature differential between the night pen (no lower than 40F) and the outdoors. I have the luxury of watching them while they are outdoors. So over the years I have learned how to gauge how well they are doing, and I bring them into the shelter if it's going to be too cold. I have an algorithm of how long they will be outside based on cloud cover, temperature, and precipitation.

The Buffs are more winter-hardy than the Runners, by the way. But you can see both groups do much better in sunshine than shade when it's freezing or below.

Just wanted to toss in that some folks gave me the dickens about temperature differences, and we have seen no health problems. But I think the disagreements arise in part because we don't spell out some of the details. My ducks are not going from 75F into 10F or vice versa. The shelter cools off as the outdoors cools off.

I was also told my ducks would huddle together to keep warm. For this flock, that does not happen. No matter how cold they are. I have not had them outside in less than 15F, so I suppose we could say there might be a temperature that would make them huddle.

But I don't think so. Silly duckies.