- Apr 11, 2009
- 494
- 8
- 136
My husband has always wanted ducks but I didn't want to be filling and emptying a kiddie pool every day or two so said no. Then we had about 2 acres of land cleared which had been covered in inpenetratable brush and thickets and we found there was a spring...which led to us digging a 25x30ft 'test' pond, 3.5ft deep. It overflows into a ditch so the water is contantly moving, at the rate of, say, a tap turned half off.
So I said we could get ducks...
Now I've thought about it more I'm wondering if the running water isn't so useful after all - won't the duck poop sink as sediment and be undisturbed by the water flowing into the ditch? Is 25x30 feet big enough (we will make it bigger one day, just not yet while we have a toddler - we need to be able to fence it in for safety)?
We fenced in an area twice the size of the pond for the ducks - is that going to be big enough too?
We currently have 6 Pekin ducklings in our back passage growing like weeds. I'm unsure how old they are - got them at the feed supply store. When we got them they still had their pipping tooth on their beaks and it was gone by the following morning - any ideas how old that would've made them? That was just over a week ago and they are two and a half times their initital size already. Just trying to work out when they'll be able to move outside.
Finally, we had a heatlamp until yesterday. We woke up in the morning to find the house full of smoke - couldn't figure out where it was coming from until we spotted the lamp had fallen onto the wood shavings which were black and smoking, on the verge of catching light! Luckily the bulb blew before we ended up with smoked duck (or smoked human).
They seem to be ok without it as there is 6 of them and they huddle together, but should I get another heat lamp anyway?
Think I had some other questions, but will leave them for later!
Thanks in advance.
So I said we could get ducks...
Now I've thought about it more I'm wondering if the running water isn't so useful after all - won't the duck poop sink as sediment and be undisturbed by the water flowing into the ditch? Is 25x30 feet big enough (we will make it bigger one day, just not yet while we have a toddler - we need to be able to fence it in for safety)?
We fenced in an area twice the size of the pond for the ducks - is that going to be big enough too?
We currently have 6 Pekin ducklings in our back passage growing like weeds. I'm unsure how old they are - got them at the feed supply store. When we got them they still had their pipping tooth on their beaks and it was gone by the following morning - any ideas how old that would've made them? That was just over a week ago and they are two and a half times their initital size already. Just trying to work out when they'll be able to move outside.
Finally, we had a heatlamp until yesterday. We woke up in the morning to find the house full of smoke - couldn't figure out where it was coming from until we spotted the lamp had fallen onto the wood shavings which were black and smoking, on the verge of catching light! Luckily the bulb blew before we ended up with smoked duck (or smoked human).
They seem to be ok without it as there is 6 of them and they huddle together, but should I get another heat lamp anyway?
Think I had some other questions, but will leave them for later!
Thanks in advance.