The only way I've been able to keep nice grass in their pens is that I pick up all the poops daily (with gloves of course), and I also rotate the areas they are in. I have 4 big pens I rotate them around in so I can just move them to another pen when that grass needs some time to recover. Works great!
Well, by shelter, I don't think the couple of dogloos really fit the bill.
My ducks don't like to crawl in to tight places. I think a more shed / coop like building is what we mean by "shelter". It looks like your yard is open to the sky, with only a, what, 6' fence around? EVERY predator can scale or dig under the fence and owls can drop in at night. The ducks may have experienced this already and once the sun goes down they start to panic. I notice in the video that they were quiet while you were out there with them. They feel protected with you around, and when you leave, they freak out.
Look into a shed type enclosure, with good venthilation, that you can lock up tight at night. Something like this pic.
Good luck.
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The pens are about 320 square feet each. I just have seven ducks (5 large ducks, 2 calls).
Exactly! They will not go in on their own, at least not at first. Easiest way is to lure them in with treats at first, then they will associate going in at night with treats and should pick up the routine pretty quick. I yell "Inside! Inside!" when it's time to go in, and they all file in and wait for their little bite of corn before bedtime.
Yeah, they're not going to poop in one area but their poop when hosed down is unbelievable fertilizer. We built our pen over dirt that had been tilled and sifted to make sure there wasn't any dangerous debris. Covered it with 3' smooth pea gravel which I hose down nightly. Just in 2 mos of the soul being soaked in poop soup, lots of sweet young grasses have found their way up through the gravel. A neat and unintended addition to the pen....and absolutely because of the nightly fertilizer being soaked into the ground. It's fantastic! Now if my imprinted, spoiled ducks would just FORAGE so I don't have to pick the grass by hand to feed it to them
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You got me curious, so I actually measured today. My two bigger pens are about 430 square feet, the two smaller ones are more like 300. Anyway, I have them in each of the pens about two weeks, then move them to a new pen. This way each pen gets over a month to recover from having ducks on it, and it keeps life more interesting for the ducks so they are not in the same pen for too long. It gets boring, you know.
It's a bit difficult to keep nice grass in duck pens, but I am a little obsessive with the cleaning and keeping the pens watered even when not in use. I use their old, dirty water to water dry areas in their pens each day as I dump them. I also move their water bowls each day so one area doesn't get completely destroyed. A few slightly destroyed areas of grass will recover alot better than one giant mudhole will.
