Pond in a chicken run, Yes or No?

[John and Tiffany]

Would it be a good idea to install a pond in the chicken run. I'm thinking of getting a koi fish pond type thing and putting it in the ground. then installing a continuous flowing pump to circulate the water. Would the chickens drink from it? would it be safe for them? would it attract mosquitos? would the eat said mosquitos? is there any reason this would be a bad idea?

 

[Mr Pink]

Hummm interesting idea ... Do Koi like the taste of chicken poop ?

 

[love4mychickens]

Personally I don not think it is a good idea. The koi can attract hawks or any birds that can take your chickens. Also the chickens may want to drink from it and there could be bacteria and stuff in it. Overall I personally think it's a bad idea. On the other hand if you have ducks a pond would be necessary.

 

[John and Tiffany]

oh, let me clarify. I wasn't going to put koi in it. I was just going to use the type of pond that you usually see for koi fish.

if no fish are present, would it still be bad as a simple watering source?

 

[love4mychickens]

Oh! Okay well hmmm.... personally I don't see why not, it would most likely be a lot of work cleaning it out and stuff. Also I can just picture a chicken falling in or something when its cold out. You would have to monitor it carefully, but if your up for the challenge, I don't see why not.

 

[lazy gardener]

Absolutely not.

First, chickens are prone to sudden episodes of committing suicide. Chicks pop out of the shell, hard wired to look for new and novel ways of committing suicide. "Hey, Rudy... Watch this!" He says as he flies up and gets his head stuck through the fencing. A chicken can drown in a water bucket.

Second, the pond just might be a good home for intermediate hosts for a lot of internal parasites.

Third, mosquitoes.

Fourth, chicken poop. chickens poop everywhere. If your birds don't drown in the pool, they will surely be filling it with poop.

 

[Blooie]

This!!

 

[John and Tiffany]

ok thank you. This answers my question. I was not sure if chickens would swim or not. I didn't think they could drown. I guess all birds are not ducks....


we are beginner chicken people and don't know much.

so no pond then.... what do they do in the wild? I picture whole flocks of drowning chickens in some lake in the woods.

 

[dpenning]

I don’t know about parasites and mosquitoes and such as my girls free range down to my pond all the time but it is a 5 acre more natural pond. I do think they would turn a koi pond into a poop cesspool way too quickly. I think most folks try to get to a closed watering system with nipples to get away from battling poop water daily.

 

[lomine]

I would also vote no. I had a stock pond, within the run, in the ground for my ducks at my old house. After I got ducks I added chicks. I had an 8 week old chick fall in the pond while just walking around. It took only seconds for her to become completely soaked. If I hadn't been right there to scoop her out she would be dead. After that the stock pond was covered (ducks still had kiddie pool in the yard).

If you have moving water you shouldn't get mosquitoes but you'll still have to do a lot of cleaning. You'll still need a filter and you'll have to deal with algae growth. Believe it or not, just having water in a pond means you have to clean it more.

If you are just looking to add a little visual beauty or moving water, you might be better off with a small fountain that you can easily clean.