Need help with housing for 5 Pekin Ducks!!

[debrasage]

Hi everybody!! We have 5 Pekin ducks that are ready for their new house! We have been keeping them in our garage in a very large plastic container to keep them safe for the past few months, but they have definitely outgrown it!

We have a private pond on our land and are wanting to let them have a home there! I want to make sure they have the right housing though! I would love for them to come and go to the pond as they like, is that possible? Any suggestions on housing? Been researching but most articles don't account for people who have ponds. Any help would be great as I want them to have a great place to live!

 

[atomic]

My boyfriend and I recently built a duck house out of free pallets we got at the local Walmart. All we had to buy out of pocket was nails, two 2x4s for the frame, and a hand saw. It's only for our pair of Rouen ducklings but you could easily make it larger to accommodate more ducks, in fact they have tons of space as is and their house is much larger than the one my two pekins live in. I do not live on a pond but have a stream, I let the ducks out to free range from morning til dusk. I do have a protected pen that the houses are located in, but it probably wouldn't be absolutely necessary if you could lock up the house at night.

I haven't gotten around to painting the house yet as I chipped my femur (OUCH) but here's an idea of how it looks. The metal we used for the roof was laying around the barn but I can't imagine it costing very much.

Without roof:

With roof (although with some tools on top) and also a comparison to the Pekins house:

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

My boyfriend and I recently built a duck house out of free pallets we got at the local Walmart. All we had to buy out of pocket was nails, two 2x4s for the frame, and a hand saw. It's only for our pair of Rouen ducklings but you could easily make it larger to accommodate more ducks, in fact they have tons of space as is and their house is much larger than the one my two pekins live in. I do not live on a pond but have a stream, I let the ducks out to free range from morning til dusk. I do have a protected pen that the houses are located in, but it probably wouldn't be absolutely necessary if you could lock up the house at night.

I haven't gotten around to painting the house yet as I chipped my femur (OUCH) but here's an idea of how it looks. The metal we used for the roof was laying around the barn but I can't imagine it costing very much.

Without roof:
View attachment 1352885

With roof (although with some tools on top) and also a comparison to the Pekins house:
View attachment 1352887

You used a handsaw to cut pallets? Wow. I dont have that type of strength these days. I would have just put the pallets together as is and built some kind of wall around it. Lol

I am currently repurposing a children's step2 playhouse for my ducks. We have a pallet base that it will sit on.
They say 4sq ft per duck, but they could probably get by with a little bit less, since they would only use it for sleeping.

 

[Ducks_4_me]

Pekin are very large ducks. You will need the space for them when you pen them to keep them safe from predators and from the elements. My first house I built from pallets also, just a temporary until I completed the main house. I would suggest having a fenced area for them as well...don't forget to close the top. I had a raccoon Incident that taught me that.

 

[atomic]

Well, to be fair my boyfriend did the sawing lol. We didn't have much money for the project which is the only reason we bought a hand saw and not a power one. I mostly disassembled the pallets which involved a lot of hammer swinging. We wanted to make it their permanent house so I told him I preferred the "fancy" lapsides. I can't wait til my leg has healed up a bit better so I can go glorify it with some paint!

 

[GeoGreyWolf]

I happened across a youtube channel called 50 ducks in a hot tub, the guy has close if not more than a thousand ducks it seems, who free range and have a large pond to go to, you might be able to look at his videos and see how he has his house set up and ducks trained to come in at night. Other than that, myself I used downed fencing from Hurricane Irma to create a house for my ducks since the one i purchased for $100+ was crap and is already falling apart.

 

[atomic]

Eventually I think we may add onto the Rouens house to include room for the Pekins as their house is premade and is also showing wear beyond its age. The Pekins were given to me along with their house, which is the same age as them only a year as of this month. I'm not sure how much it was, but I bet it was an exorbitant amount compared to our costs to build the pallet house. I'd be mad if I spent a hundred or two on a house that's already falling apart after a measly year! It's even been covered under the barn. My boyfriend has a lot of experience in construction but I -do not- and the house has been very simple to make, I highly suggest building yourself to save some money and achieve a high sense of satisfaction!

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

Eventually I think we may add onto the Rouens house to include room for the Pekins as their house is premade and is also showing wear beyond its age. The Pekins were given to me along with their house, which is the same age as them only a year as of this month. I'm not sure how much it was, but I bet it was an exorbitant amount compared to our costs to build the pallet house. I'd be mad if I spent a hundred or two on a house that's already falling apart after a measly year! It's even been covered under the barn. My boyfriend has a lot of experience in construction but I -do not- and the house has been very simple to make, I highly suggest building yourself to save some money and achieve a high sense of satisfaction!

Yeah, that prefab is at least $200. We are also finishing up a chicken coop from scraps just lying around for the cost of a box of screws, gal of paint, and bought an automatic chicken door (because I needed one ). However, we have tools and borrowed whatever we didn't have. Also, the DIY has been a lot of back breaking work. Not going to lie, prefab would be much easier, just not as sturdy.

 

[PirateGirl]

I think you need to decide if you will leave them out all the time or if you want to be able to round them up and lock them up in their house at night. This will likely impact not only the location of your duck house but also possibly the style of it. They really just need a safe spot to lay their eggs (if you have any girls) and to shelter from bad weather. It needs to feel safer than say the bushes by the pond. I don't know how close the pond is to your house, but I suspect they will want to hang out near the pond all the time and placing the house near there would be ideal. Also consider if you want/need electricity near your duck house for any reason. Ducks sleep on the ground, so any structure with soft bedding on the floor will work. I'd say the duck door probably needs to be at least 2 ft. tall for the Pekins to comfortably navigate. My ducks go in their house for shade on occasion, to lay their eggs, and if it's really windy, but it could be 10:00 at night and 10 degrees F and snowing and they will be sleeping on the ground outside in their run.

 

[atomic]

I won't argue that building one yourself is hard work. We spent six hours working on ours and it's still not a finished product. However some of that time was also spent taking down a wire fence that wasn't being utilized from the rear of the barn, removing all the vines, and installing it inside the barn to lengthen the pen size to accommodate the new house. There is definitely a sweat equity involved but you get exactly what you want, are able to have your own creative vision, save a bunch of cash, and know firsthand the integrity of your structure.