New Duckling Owner

[Miss Lydia]

That's great news.. look forward to seeing them!!

 

[chickkrzi]

Great glad to see you did your research before buying you duckling. REALLY SMART MOVE! I too done a lot of home work and settled on Welsh Harlequin as well. But I started off with adult birds first. These girls will put out some egg! Have hatched out 2 duckling. And now I have 2 girls sitting on 18 eggs. wish you best of luck with your little ones!

 

[Sfraker]

Reading how fast they grow and seeing it with your own eyes is totally different. I swear there are days when I come home from work and they are bigger than when I left!

Here is Summer with my daughter yesterday, which is the day she turned 5 weeks. (Summer the duck, not my daughter.)

 

[misbhaven]

I make waterers from empty juice bottles / milk jugs from about 2 week old on just cut a whole or hole big bough for their head an height keeps the water in pretty well and. They can't play in it. And you can change it easily as the grow just make a new one. I am strting with a square miracle whip jar today for some new swedish I hatched...I save every container cheap feed bowls\treat bowl for my chickens and if the get nasty I just toss.

 

[foothillsco]

Great picture.

 

[misbhaven]

dh got the pen for our blue swedish ducks built the other day here are a couple pics of it..... turned out pretty good since he has never really built any type of buildings before but is learning.....

 

[foothillsco]

Looks great.
My friend learned about raccoons the hard way. Even if they can't get inside the coop, they will reach in just to kill. I'm still surprised her ducks got caught thru the fence but one raccoon killed 20 chickens and ducks.
Moral? Use hardware cloth.

 

[Sfraker]

I agree chicken wire will keep poultry in, however most predators (including racoons) can tear it. Raccoons will work together. One scares the birds to the other side of the pen where another raccoon is waiting to reach in and get them. I would put hardware cloth over the whole thing.

I learned the hard way that my fencing wasn't enough when a couple stray dogs tore it down and killed two ducks.

Here is a great article I have been using to rebuild my coop/pen.

http://www.carolinawaterfowlrescue.com/housing.html

 

[misbhaven]

i used garden fence and chicken wire over each other it wasn't 100% finished when hubby had to put some ducks in notice the little plexiglass window so later if the have ducklings my kids can see...hardware cloth on the bottom, all my animals are behind an additional 3 ft fence, that duck cage is 3 ft off the ground we will building a ramp system for them to be able to roam the garden...and my chicken runs are made out of dog kennels one welded wire , one chain link with chicken wire just over that at the bottom, with bird netting on the top of one, fence on the other, animal like raccoons etc don't bother coming into my yard I live 1500 feet from a commercial grain bin too much free food available...