please post pics of inside your duck houses

[kylee2katie]

My husband and I are getting a big house for my ducks today. I would like to see pictures of other inside set ups. we have 1 pekin, 1 runner, 4 mallards, and 2 muskovy. They will be sharing this house at night and free range during the day. I need ideas for the nest boxes, roosts, flooring, etc...thanks!

 

[ChickenToes]

Well, I don't have pics of the inside of the coop, but I think I can help you out a bit. You don't really need roosts, the only duck breed that roosts are Muscovies. You may want to build one for them, but it's not necessary.

My ducks have also never used a nest box. I've given them a large shallow one and a traditional box shaped one, and they ignored both. They like to make a little nest on the floor.

The floor in the coop is just plywood. I use the deep litter method, so I just keep the floor covered with 5 or 6 inches of wood shavings to prevent the floor from getting wet.

Also, the ducks' feed and water is outside. In my opinion, they are way too messy with their water to keep it in the coop. They do just fine overnight without food or water.

 

[Bryanccfshr]

mine is extremely simple

 

[kylee2katie]

that looks easy enough....does the door at the back flip up to close/down for ramp out?

 

[Amiga]

Here is what the inside looks like - it just shows one wall, but you can see it is just plywood with vinyl sheet flooring that goes up the wall five or six inches. I have replaced the duck tape with a one by three furring strip screwed across the top edge to keep yuck out from under the flooring.

This is what the "ceiling" looks like - hardware cloth underneath an open area underneath corrugated polycarbonate. Lets light in, air flow through, critters out.

I don't have an interior shot of this Dutch door, but it has been the most handy feature of the house, which is just a 4'x8' box with double walls, insulated with vermiculite and perlite, because they do not mold and have a decent R value.

I now have two fifteen inch diameter wooden cheese boxes that I use for next boxes for the eleven runners. Some of them have just begun laying, and the layers (five or six) all choose the same nest box, in the back corner of the house.

I use deep litter (pine shavings, pine sawdust pellets, and some peat moss to reduce ammonia production), stirring it every day or two, topping off with a thin layer of fresh bedding.

Again, this is not an interior shot, but shows the duck door - a side-sliding door. Ther eis now a 4'x8' hardware cloth pen attached at that end of the house. I made a little ramp, as the floor of the pen is about eight inches lower than the floor of the house. (I ended up changing the slide to the right side of the door.)

 

[katharinad]

Our duck house with small pen and cleaning station in front. We only pen them up temporary and they usually free range. We currently have an injured duck and a companion in it until the poor little thing is back to normal. It freaked out and fell out of a pool onto its wing tip and needs wrapping.

Inside of the duck house. The floor has concrete papers and we have covered it with black rubber runners from Home Depot (carpet isle). They make clean up easy and the ducks cannot slip on them. You can also get imperfect vinyl floring and flip it upside down or sand the surface so they don't slip on it. Excuse the little mess. I can clean the wall and windows daily and they still make a mess. We have 13 ducks in it. The picture is right from the cleaning up in the morning mess. We remove all the wood shavings and let it dry out for the day.

Our cleaning station outside is really handy. We rinse all the items daily and let it air dry for later. It's a home made board with slats in it.

For food and water we use deep lids from a rubbermaid container. You can also get a regular container and simply cut it down. It catches all of the water and we never have a mess on the floor.

This is how we set up the duck house every evening. Fresh pine shavings, food and water.

Hope this helps you with your setup idea.

 

[Bryanccfshr]

Quote:
yes, the door doubles as a ramp. The other walls each have small windows wit hardware cloth screens as well as a soffit type ventilation up at the roof.

 

[L0rraine]

Quote:
Wow -- some really great ideas. I'm loving the cleaning station and the food and waterer set up! THANK YOU for posting!

 

[katharinad]

I'm glad I threw some ideas your way. Nobody has a perfect setup, and I have even seen better ones then what I have. I guess some have lots of money to sink in. Not me, so all you see is what we have build ourselves. Lots of sweat went into it. Not to mention sunburns.

The key is that is has to work for you. BTW the washing/drying station came from the green house we had in place of the duck house. Here are images of how it used to look like. It was in poor shape so we took it down and recycled everything. The greenhouse rack was build by us a long while ago, and now it has a good purpose again.

 

[percyj]

Katharinad; what are the outer dimensions of your duck house???