Pen for mallards or something more secure?

[mroe21877]

Originally i was going to get a few chickens but a trip to TSC recently changed that to four mallards. I cannot decide how I want to house ducks though. I have a 30x24 garden which is enclosed with chicken wire mainly to protect the vegetables. THeir pen (probably will be a minimum of 32 sq foot outside space plus the house) will reside within the garden with a small house and more secure pen for their safety along with a small pond. the original idea was to allow them freedom within their pen and then let them out while we are in the garden with them - most likely nightly. However two issues are bothering me. One is ducks fly - the other is they probably wont want to go back in their pen- so do I let them be and if they fly away so be it, clip their wings to keep them there, or take it a step further and use bird netting over the entire garden. If i go with the netting then i dont need to clip, but i wouldnt feel good about the chicken wire since at that point the entire garden would be their pen (presenting another issue of them eating my garden). Or i do clip, forego the netting and try to get them in at night. or do i just keep them in their pen and allow them out when i have time to get them back in? I dont want to confine them too much although they will have a fair amount of space and the pond.

I thought i had it all figured for chickens and now im confused. We dont want them to leave...... but I dont want them unhappy either.

thanks for any insight!

also, i have had trouble finding pics of duck houses. I found some here but it seems there are way more examples of chicken coops than duck houses.

 

[Yoko Kato]

We got our mallard ducks last April from TSC. One of them turned out to be a mix of mallard and crested and could not fly. That basiclly cost her life. She didn't come home last Wednesday and we think a fox got her. But we still have the other four. They were supposed to be all hens, but 3 out of 5 turned out to be drakes. Anyway, as far as housing goes, we just put a truck topper on the ground and laid straw in it. We kept it like that until winter hit. Then we laid a piece of fence, topped with a piece of tarp, then placed the topper on top of it. We have never had any problem with it except that it was hard to closed the door in winter when it got so cold. The ducks survived a whole year living in the topper. They are not fenced in and freely roam around the yard. It was at first frustrating and time consuming to put the ducks in the topper house, but they eventually learned. They won't go in unless they are ready and sometimes it is almost dark by the time they go in there, but they eventually go in. We did't clip their wings, so yes, they do fly and when they don't want to do what we want them to do, they take off into the sky in protest. But they come back right away. If the wings are cliped, they can't defend themselves and that will cost their lives. If the one we lost had been a pure mallard, we believe she would have been able to escape the attack and been alive. It is so cool to see them take off, circle above the house and land. It is awesome, especially when all four of them are flying together. We plan to build a new duck house this year, but one thing we noticed about ducks is that they don't like any changes. When we put new straw in their house, they know it and it takes extra longer to put them in there. When we got them a second pool, they didn't go in for at least 3 days. Another thing to remember is that entry needs to be wide. Not sure exactly how wide, but I think at least 2 feet. Anyway, I think you need to decide if you want to clip the wings or not and that will determine if you need fence or not. We didn't clip nor did we fenced them in. But they basically come back to their topper house to sleep everynight. Good luck and have fun.

 

[Sweetfolly]

Here are some threads you can go read for pictures/ideas on duck houses:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=178796&p=1

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=193124&p=1

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=262554&p=1

Personally, I have two mallards and they're always in an enclosed run with flight netting over the top to keep them from flying away. We live near three small lakes and have a lot of wild ducks/geese passing through all the time, and I don't want my spoiled pet ducks getting any ideas about joining them. They're perfectly happy in the amount of space they're in, as long as I refresh their little pool every day - they spend most of the day in the pool anyway!

You'll have to usher them into their "house" at night for awhile, but eventually they'll learn the routine and put themselves to bed at night.