- Mar 21, 2009
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Hey Everyone,
I thought I would join the club and post some of our new Bantam duck breeding pens. They are both 4 x 8 with the mortar tub pools everyone seems to be doing. The enclosed sections are 2 x 4 with 2 doors and three nest boxes. The outdoor portions both have two additional doors per cage. We used 1/2" x 1" - 16 gauge wire that is 30" tall because we originally were thinking we could use them as very temporary pens for full size ducks if I ever needed to use one to quarantine an injured bird or something. We put a quad of Overbergs in one cage and a pair and trio of Mini Appleyards in the other. They *love* the new cages and continued to lay even the day they were moved into them. We are eventually going to put the cages over the top of pea gravel as well to help with the aesthetics and mud.
Front View-doors closed...
Front View-doors open...
Side View (one cage with greenhouse siding in part for shade, in part for aesthetics)...
Back View (double doors into nest boxes on both cages)...
Inside of One of the Nest Boxes...
We already got a big snow storm with a foot of heavy, wet snow and they held up beautifully. We just left the pans in, but drained them and covered them with other pans turned upside down so the birds couldn't get in them. We did also add a lot of additional support for the wire floors and roofs in order to handle the snow load. All of the doors have lockable quick release latches and the pens are painted with a paint that has polyurethane in it (I have used it before with good results). The roofs are plastic greenhouse material (was really easy to work with and totally held the inside watertight during the snow.
I borrowed an idea from Giffy and drilled drain holes in the wood floors of the houses to help keep moisture out as well. On the next one, I may use wire though like Giffy does. A guy here locally made me some similar pens that are 2 x 8 with enclosed portions on either end. They are divided into two with the ends meeting in the middle (end-to-end rather than side-by-side). I have trios of birds in each compartment. I really like those too, except for the solid wood floors in the enclosed part, so I am going to modify those to be like these. Anyway, I hope you like them!
I thought I would join the club and post some of our new Bantam duck breeding pens. They are both 4 x 8 with the mortar tub pools everyone seems to be doing. The enclosed sections are 2 x 4 with 2 doors and three nest boxes. The outdoor portions both have two additional doors per cage. We used 1/2" x 1" - 16 gauge wire that is 30" tall because we originally were thinking we could use them as very temporary pens for full size ducks if I ever needed to use one to quarantine an injured bird or something. We put a quad of Overbergs in one cage and a pair and trio of Mini Appleyards in the other. They *love* the new cages and continued to lay even the day they were moved into them. We are eventually going to put the cages over the top of pea gravel as well to help with the aesthetics and mud.
Front View-doors closed...
Front View-doors open...
Side View (one cage with greenhouse siding in part for shade, in part for aesthetics)...
Back View (double doors into nest boxes on both cages)...
Inside of One of the Nest Boxes...
We already got a big snow storm with a foot of heavy, wet snow and they held up beautifully. We just left the pans in, but drained them and covered them with other pans turned upside down so the birds couldn't get in them. We did also add a lot of additional support for the wire floors and roofs in order to handle the snow load. All of the doors have lockable quick release latches and the pens are painted with a paint that has polyurethane in it (I have used it before with good results). The roofs are plastic greenhouse material (was really easy to work with and totally held the inside watertight during the snow.
I borrowed an idea from Giffy and drilled drain holes in the wood floors of the houses to help keep moisture out as well. On the next one, I may use wire though like Giffy does. A guy here locally made me some similar pens that are 2 x 8 with enclosed portions on either end. They are divided into two with the ends meeting in the middle (end-to-end rather than side-by-side). I have trios of birds in each compartment. I really like those too, except for the solid wood floors in the enclosed part, so I am going to modify those to be like these. Anyway, I hope you like them!
